Stress‐and‐Sense Investigation of Memory Effect in Si‐NCs MIS Structures

Abstract

Silicon nanocrystals have been recently investigated for potential applications in modern silicon optoelectronics and photonics. In this work, co-doped silicon nanocrystals embedded in hafnium oxide thin films have been introduced to metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) structures. The fabricated test devices are investigated for the nanocrystals charging effect and the charge retention properties parametrized by flat-band voltage shift. Electrical measurements including the stress-and-sense procedure are carried out. The effect of bias parameters on memory effect is discussed in terms of device capacitance, flat-band voltage shift, and retention time. The reported retention of flat-band voltage values extrapolated to 10 years seems to be promising for future applications in memory devices.

Silicon-Carbide (SiC) Nanocrystal Technology and Characterization and Its Applications in Memory Structures

“…The electrical measurements were conducted with the Keithley 4200 semiconductor characterization system and SUSS PM-8 probe station, as presented in [15]. The procedure of electrical parameters extraction used in this work was described in detail in [16]. The results presented in this study were obtained for NC-MIS and NC-MIM devices, with a top electrode area of 1.8 × 10 −4 cm 2 .…”