Inelastic Electron Tunnelling Spectroscopy (IETS) of High-k Dielectrics

Abstract

It is shown that inelastic electron tunnelling spectroscopy (IETS) is a powerful technique to study microstructures and defects in Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor (MIS) systems where the insulator is sufficiently thin to allow significant tunnelling current to flow through. The information that may be revealed by IETS contains a wide variety of inelastic interactions, including interactions with phonons, various bonding vibrations, bonding defects, and impurities. Examples will be given to illustrate the capabilities of this technique.

Charge-Trapping-Induced Hysteresis Effects in Highly Doped Silicon Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Structures

“…In order to understand these features, we analyzed the transport through th using inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS). It is a technique that can b to study phonons, bonding vibrations, and impurities [12,18] in MIM/MIS struct can also be helpful to analyze tunneling through traps in dielectrics [19,20], giving mation about their geometrical position and energy. The IETS signal is proportiona current's second derivative, and it is usually measured using the lock-in amplifie duce the signal-to-noise ratio.…”

“…The relevant featu In order to understand these features, we analyzed the transport through the traps using inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS). It is a technique that can be used to study phonons, bonding vibrations, and impurities [12,18] in MIM/MIS structures. It can also be helpful to analyze tunneling through traps in dielectrics [19,20], giving information about their geometrical position and energy.…”