Formation and characterization of hybrid nanodot stack structure for floating gate application

With a combination of self-assembling formation of Si-quantum dots (QDs) and the silicidation of pre-grown Si-QDs promoted with an exposure to remote H2 plasma without external heating after ultrathin Ni film formation, a hybrid nanodots structure consisting of Ni-silicide nanodots and Si-QDs was fabricated and applied to a floating gate in MOS (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) capacitors. The charge storage capacity of the hybrid nanodots FG is attributable to a deep potential well of the Ni-silicide nanodots, and the charge injection characteristics measured with applications of pulsed gate biases can be interpreted in terms of multistep electron injection to and emission from the Ni-silicide nanodots through the discrete energy states of the underlying Si-QDs.