Size-dependent charge storage in amorphous silicon quantum dots embedded in silicon nitride

Park, Nae-Man; Jeon, Sung-Jong; Yang, Hyundeok; Hwang, Hyunsang; Park, Seong-Ju; Choi, Suk‐Ho

doi:10.1063/1.1596371

Cited by 35 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…For both cases, the fully charged sample has larger charge density, decays slowly and indicating better memory performance than partially charged sample. This is attributed to the resulting stored charge screens the gate charge and reduces the conduction in the inversion layer [15]. The charged nanocrystals also electrostatically repulse other charge to tunnel inside the oxide layer.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonvolatile Charge Storage Characteristics of a MOS Diode with Buried Silicon Nanocrystals and Interfacial Si Nano-pyramids

et al. 2008

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The memory effect of MOS diodes made on Si substrate with Si nanocrystals (NC-Si) and interfacial Si nano-pyramids deposited by PECVD at different ICP powers is characterized. TEM analysis on the NC-Si reveals that the NC-Si average size are around 3.9±1.1 nm and 4.7±0.7 nmwhen grown at ICP power of 20 W and 30 W, respectively. The interfacial Si nanopyramids can only be observed by growing at 30 W or larger. The density of NC-Si of 4.4 × 10 18 and 5.6 × 10 18 cm -3 are relatively in good agreement with the corresponding PL intensities of 45 and 73 count/nm, respectively, for 20 and 30-W grown SiO x samples.. The C-V curves of the NC-Si embedded MOSLEDs show flat-band voltage shift of 0.74 and 18.46 Vfor 20 and 30-W samples, respectively. The C-V hysteresis width also increases by enlarging the range of sweeping voltage. A strong correlation between the size/density of Si nanocrystals and the flatband voltage difference has been concluded. In the case of the C-t measurement, the charging and discharging behaviors were found to depend on charging conditions. Finally, the relationship of the electron/hole charge density with the retention time is analyzed. Our data shows the charge loss rate of 1.3 % for electron is better at 20-Wsample, but the charge loss rate of 0.23 % for hole is better at 30-Wsample with Si NCs embedded in MOSLED after 10 2 s.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonvolatile Charge Storage Characteristics of a MOS Diode with Buried Silicon Nanocrystals and Interfacial Si Nano-pyramids

et al. 2008

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“…Assuming both of the C-V characteristics of nc-Si/MS capacitors to be produced completely by charge localization, we are expecting to find that a ncSi/MS layer with larger nc-Si shall result in an increased gate current ͓see Fig. 2͑b͔͒, and therefore a wider memory window 16 ͑due to a higher charge density in the QDs͒. However, as shown in Fig.…”

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confidence: 94%

Nonvolatile memory with switching interfacial polar structures of nano Si-in-mesoporous silica

Shieh

Huang

et al. 2009

Applied Physics Letters

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We show an artificially engineered electret with Si nanocrystals embedded in mesoporous silica for nonvolatile memory. We attribute the polarization to from polar layers lying at the interfaces between one-side bonded Si nanocrystals and mesoporous silica matrix. Under external field, the Si nanocrystals could be displaced in the porechannels causing displaced charge distributions and therefore a field-controllable electric polarization. Nonvolatile memory is demonstrated with a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor.To satisfy the ever-increasing need for information flow and storage, the industry of semiconductor integrated circuits ͑ICs͒ has eagerly hunted for an ideal semiconductor memory technology with the high speed of static random access memory ͑RAM͒, the nonvolatility of flash, and the density of dynamic RAM. 1 Nonvolatile memories ͑NVMs͒ can retain the data even when power is interrupted and are becoming a crucial component for the society of efficient energy utilization. In this regard, NVM based on the concept of storing information into the states of electric polarization had attracted much interest. In a ferroelectric field effect transistor with the gate dielectric layer being replaced by a ferroelectric thin film, 2-4 the electric polarization of the gate can be sensed by monitoring the magnitude of the source-drain current, 2-4 offering high speed random access, 5 low power consumption, 2,4,5 and nonvolatility. 1 The spontaneous polarization of a ferroelectric crystal with a noncentrosymmetric structure is mainly due to permanent dipoles that can switch directions under an action of electric field. 6 Bulk silicon does not possess ferroelectric properties due to the diamond structure with centrosymmetry. To realize ferroelectric RAMs ͑FeRAM͒, tremendous efforts have been made to integrate nonsilicon-based ferroelectric films, such as lead zirconate titanate ͑PZT͒ and strontium bismuth tantalite ͑SBT͒, 2,6 with the mature silicon memory technology. However, the interface reactions between PZT ͑SBT͒ and the Si substrate often generate mobile ions and lead to low data retention time. 2,3,7 Recently, we had shown that interfacial properties could be employed to yield multifunctionality 8 with polar Si-O nanostructures formed by asymmetrically embedding Si nanocrystals ͑nc-Si͒ in mesoporous silica ͑MS͒. In this letter, a full silicon-based metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor ͑MOSFET͒ NVM was demonstrated by using the artificially engineered electret. 9 Figure 1͑a͒ presents the schematic of the NVM cell, where the electret film is sandwiched between two oxide buffer layers to serve as the gate dielectrics.We prepared the test samples of nc-Si/MS by first depositing a 10-nm-thick SiO 2 buffer layer and then spin coating a 90-nm-thick MS nanotemplate layer on n-or p-type silicon. We thereafter synthesized Si nanocrystals in the MS templates with the high-density inductively coupled plasma method. 8 By invoking an enhancement effect with an electrically biased substrate similar ...

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“…Since the discovery of the light-emitting properties of silicon nanoclusters embedded in silica matrices [1], research has been focused on the improvement of both the photoluminescent [2][3][4][5][6] and electroluminescent [7][8][9][10][11] characteristics of this materials. In parallel silica matrices have become popular for memory devices and transistors [12][13][14]. All these experiments rely on the quantum confinement of the nanoclusters instead of defect-related phenomena, and many rely on the nanoclusters' synthesis through a high temperature anneal of silicon-rich dielectric layers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Considering the wide range of techniques employed for obtaining of silicon nanoclusters embedded in dielectric matrices (chemical vapour deposition (CVD) [1,[5][6][7][8][9][10]13], ion implantation [2,4], sputtering [3]…) and the different available techniques for the structural characterization it does not result surprising that there are different tuning parameters (silicon excess [1][2][3], silicon content [4,11], flow ratio R [6,9,10,16], nanoclusters' size [5,12,13]…). This makes difficult to compare different results and in particular different materials and obtaining techniques.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stoichiometry of silicon‐rich dielectrics for silicon nanocluster formation

Barreto

Morales–Sánchez

Perálvarez

et al. 2011

Phys. Status Solidi (c)

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Silicon photonics has been bred by several techniques including Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) and ion implantation amongst others in order to synthesize silicon nanoclusters with CMOS‐compatible technologies. Most of these techniques end up relying on the formation of nanoclusters through the diffusion and segregation of silicon atoms in a silicon‐rich dielectric matrix. In this work we present a parallel analysis on silicon rich dielectric layers obtained by different methods. X‐Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, ellipsometry and photoluminescence are used to characterize Low Pressure CVD and Plasma Enhanced CVD samples in the same theoretical silicon excess range. The analysis shows that independently on the obtaining method the initial concentration of silicon excess can be used to estimate some properties. The actual binding of the atoms can change as well regardless of their initial quantity. However secondary parameters such as the obtaining temperature and the nitrogen concentration in the layer have to be taken into account. Therefore, experimental parameters such as the flow ratio between reactant gases or the refractive index prove to be insufficient if samples obtained by different methods are compared. (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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Size-dependent charge storage in amorphous silicon quantum dots embedded in silicon nitride

Cited by 35 publications

References 16 publications

Nonvolatile Charge Storage Characteristics of a MOS Diode with Buried Silicon Nanocrystals and Interfacial Si Nano-pyramids

Nonvolatile Charge Storage Characteristics of a MOS Diode with Buried Silicon Nanocrystals and Interfacial Si Nano-pyramids

Nonvolatile memory with switching interfacial polar structures of nano Si-in-mesoporous silica

Stoichiometry of silicon‐rich dielectrics for silicon nanocluster formation

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