Charge storage in Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 with enhanced C-AFM

M. Porti; M. Avidano; M. Nafria; X. Aymerich; J. Carreras; B. Garrido

doi:10.1117/12.608206

28 June 2005 Charge storage in Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO₂ with enhanced C-AFM

M. Porti, M. Avidano, M. Nafria, X. Aymerich, J. Carreras, B. Garrido

Proceedings Volume 5838, Nanotechnology II; (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.608206
Event: Microtechnologies for the New Millennium 2005, 2005, Sevilla, Spain

Abstract

A Conductive Atomic Force Microscope (C-AFM) has been used to investigate the nanometer scale electrical properties of Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) memory devices with Silicon nanocrystals (Si-nc) embedded in the gate oxide. This study has been possible thanks to the high lateral resolution of the technique, which allows to characterize areas of only few hundreds of nm² and, therefore, the area that contains a reduced number of Si-nc. The results have demonstrated the capability of the Si-nc to enhance the gate oxide electrical conduction due to trap assisted tunneling. On the other hand, Si-nc can act as trapping centers. The amount of charge stored in Si-nc has been estimated through the change induced in the barrier height measured from the I-V characteristics. The results show that only ~20% of the Si-nc are charged. These nanometer scale results are consistent with those obtained during the macroscopic characterization of the same structures. Therefore, C-AFM has been shown to be a very suitable tool to perform a detailed investigation of the performance of memory devices based on MOS structures with Si-nc at such reduced scale.

Citation Download Citation

M. Porti, M. Avidano, M. Nafria, X. Aymerich, J. Carreras, and B. Garrido "Charge storage in Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO₂ with enhanced C-AFM", Proc. SPIE 5838, Nanotechnology II, (28 June 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.608206

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