We demonstrate a low voltage nonvolatile memory field effect transistor comprising thermal SiO2 tunneling and HfO2 blocking layers as the gate dielectric stack and Au nanocrystals as charge storage nodes. The structure exhibits a memory window of ∼2 V at an applied sweeping voltage of ±3 V which increases to 12.6 at ±12 V. Retention tests show an extrapolated loss of 16% after ten years in the hysteresis width of the threshold voltage. Dynamic program/erase operation reveal an approximately pulse width independent memory for pulse durations of 1 μs to 10 ms; longer pulses increase the memory window while for pulses shorter than 1 μs, the memory windows vanishes. The effective oxide thickness is below 10 nm with very low gate and drain leakage currents.

Effects of interfaces and thermal annealing on the electrical performance of the SiO 2 /Si 3 N 4 /Al 2 O 3 ͑ONA͒ stacks in nonvolatile memory devices were investigated. The results demonstrated the principal role of Si 3 N 4 /Al 2 O 3 and Al 2 O 3 /metal-gate interfaces in controlling charge retention properties of memory cells. Memory devices that employ both electron and hole trappings were fabricated using a controlled oxidation of nitride surface prior to the Al 2 O 3 growth, a high-temperature annealing of the ONA stack in the N 2 +O 2 atmosphere, and a metal gate electrode having a high work function ͑Pt͒. These devices exhibited electrical performance superior to that of their existing SiO 2 /Si 3 N 4 / SiO 2 analogs.

We describe the effect of optical excitation of state of the art nonvolatile memory capacitors. The devices comprise Au nanocrystals sandwiched between a SiO2 tunneling layer and a HfO2 blocking layer and exhibit an effective oxide thickness of 7.5 nm. The memory properties are modified by the optical excitation due to nonequilibrium depletion. Optical control with different illumination wavelengths as well as variable optical intensities and pulse widths is described.

No abstract

Threshold voltage (Vth) and drain-source current (Ids) behaviour of nitride read only memories (NROM) were studied both in situ during irradiation or after irradiation with\ud photons and ions. Vth loss fluctuations are well explained by the same Weibull statistics regardless of the irradiation species and total dose. Results of drain current measurements in-situ during\ud irradiation with photons and ions reveal a step-like increase of Ids with the total irradiation dose. A brief physical explanation is also provided