Localized charge injection in SiO2 films containing silicon nanocrystals

Abstract

An atomic-force microscope ͑AFM͒ is used to locally inject, detect, and quantify the amount and location of charge in SiO 2 films containing Si nanocrystals ͑size ϳ2-6 nm͒. By comparison with control samples, charge trapping is shown to be due to nanocrystals and not ion-implantation-induced defects in samples containing ion-beam-synthesized Si nanocrystals. Using an electrostatic model and AFM images of charge we have estimated the amount of charge injected in a typical experiment to be a few hundred electrons and the discharge rate to be ϳ35Ϯ15 e/min.

X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopic Analysis of Si Nanoclusters in SiO2 Matrix

“…3,5 Another piece of evidence for the presence of nanocrystals comes from capacitance-voltage (CV) measurements. Accordingly, MOS capacitors with bare oxide do not show any hysteresis in the CV curves, whereas capacitors with Si(nc) show hysteresis that depends on the nanocrystal density (adjusted by annealing temperature), 6 which is also the case for the samples used in this work.…”

An experimental study of charge distribution in crystalline and amorphous Si nanoclusters in thin silica films

“…Five oxidation states are reported to be present in Si/ SiO 2 . The reduction in intensity of the Si 0 peak may be attributed to oxidation due to residual oxygen in the nitrogen atmosphere.…”

High total dose tolerance of prototype silicon nanocrystal non-volatile memory cells

“…oxide shell is designed to provide sufficient isolation to prevent crystal-to-crystal charge tunneling between spheres in contact. This guarantees the independent charge storage on each Si nanocrystal [5]. A monolayer of such oxidized Si nanoparticles is deposited onto a thin tunneling dielectric (oxide, oxy-nitride, or high-k), covering the channel of a field effect transistor (FET).…”