The work experimentally and theoretically analyzes the process of atomic layer deposition of hafnium oxide with the participation of water vapor as an oxidizing agent. The study of infrared absorption, Auger spectroscopy and luminescence shows that with increasing water pulse duration, the concentration of oxygen vacancies decreases and the composition tends to stoichiometric, which is given by the formula HfO2. Modeling of gas dynamics and kinetics of film synthesis by atomic layer deposition was performed, which showed the dependence of the coverage of the film surface with oxygen on the pulse duration and deposition temperature. A comparison of calculations with experimental results made it possible to estimate the magnitude of the kinetic coefficients of the synthesis processes that describe the observed experimental dependences and to show that the larger of the two temperatures of the atomic layer deposition window is associated with water desorption.