Role of holes in the isotope effect and mechanisms for the metal–oxide–semiconductor device degradation

Abstract

An experiment that incorporates the deuterium isotope effect into the “hole trapping and electron filling” scenario in silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) devices is presented. It is suggested that Lai’s physical model is only partially true in order to explain all of the observed MOS device degradation phenomena. The isotope effect is exclusively due to hot electrons, not hot holes. Holes might break the Si–O bonds to generate interface traps at VG near VT. The dominant degradation mechanism is the electron-stimulated Si–H bond breaking, although electron trapping also plays a role in degradation.

Isotope effect of hydrogen release in metal/oxide/n-silicon tunneling diodes

“…The electron current tunnels from Si conduction band to Al and the hole current tunnels from Al to Si valence band. The hole tunneling from Al to Si can break the Si-O bond or Si-H bond [12] or be trapped in the bulk oxide by oxygen vacancy (O vacancy) [13,14] with the formation of the interface states and bulk tarp, respectively. While the electron tunneling from Si to Al cannot damage the Si/SiO 2 interface, since there is no excess electron energy at the Si/SiO 2 interface.…”

Current gain degradation in SiGe HBTs by hot carriers

“…12 Furthermore, in FC stressing, the electrons may possibly damage the polysilicon-silicon interface as well as the polysilicon-oxide emitter perimeter.…”

Reduced temperature dependence of hot carrier degradation in deuterated nMOSFETs

“…If interface state creation is the dominant factor in the degradation, plotting the increase in D it versus the corresponding V T -shift should give the same trend. Since charge trapping is not sensitive to the isotope effect in the longer time to reach a certain V T -shift for the D samples more charge will be trapped [11]. So when a considerable fraction of the degradation is caused by charge trapping a smaller or larger slope can be seen in the correlation plot, depending on whether holes or electrons are the trapped species.…”