Low temperature Ni-nanocrystals-assisted hybrid polycrystalline silicon thin film transistor for non-volatile memory applications

The nickel-nanocrystals (Ni-NCs)-embedded silicon nitride acting as a trapping layer has been successfully demonstrated to manipulate the charging and discharging of electrons in a thin film transistor (TFT) for non-volatile memory (NVM) applications. Regarding device performance, with and without Ni-NCs in the stack and under a programming/erasing condition of +/−18 V for 1 s, a better threshold voltage shift of 3.2 V can be reached compared to a shift of 2.0 V for a stack without Ni-NCs. The shift is an index representing the value required to differentiate “0” or “1” states during operation. In this case, the diameter range and number density of Ni-NCs are 5-13 nm and 5.3 × 1011 cm−2, respectively.