Temperature-dependent electron transport in highly ordered Co/Al2O3 core-shell nanocrystal memory synthesized with di-block co-polymers

Abstract

Di-block copolymer synthesized Co/Al 2 O 3 core-shell nanocrystal (NC) capacitors were fabricated in order to study the temperature-dependent electron transport. The capacitance-voltage memory window is shown to increase proportionally with the substrate temperature, saturating at 3.5 V, at 175 C. At elevated operating temperatures, the tunneling of electrons increases, resulting in large flatband voltage shift. Furthermore, the electron leakage of the NCs at high temperature is faster than the leakage at room temperature due to thermally assisted tunneling. The activation energy is determined by exponentially fitting the thermally dependent retention performance, which was then used to model the occupied energy levels and further elucidate the electron transport within the NC memory. V C 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.

Performance Revelation and Optimization of Gold Nanocrystal for Future Nonvolatile Memory Application

“…With a longer space between NCs, the probability of lateral electron migration is lower. On the other hand, in order to discuss the thermally activated charge loss mechanism, the temperature effect is also demonstrated, and the activation energy for the thermally activated charge loss is calculated from the Arrhenius equation: t ¼ 0 e E a =kT , 30) where t is the charge loss time at a certain charge remaining ratio, E a is the activation energy, k is the Boltzmann constant, and T is the absolute temperature at 25, 55, and 85 C for the retention time measurement. Figure 6(b) shows ln t as a function of thermal energy (1=kT ).…”