An electrical study of behaviors of Si nanocrystals distributed in the gate oxide near the oxide/substrate interface of a MOS structure

In this work, we have investigated the capacitance–voltage (C–V) and conductance–voltage (G–V) characteristics of silicon nanocrystals (nc-Si) distributed in the gate oxide very near the SiO2/Si interface of a Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) structure. The MOS structure is found to be sensitive to only the positive voltage stress from which charging of the nanocrystals causes a negative flatband voltage shift. At the same time, a large conductance peak is observed due to the energy loss via the neutral-nanocrystal paths near the SiO2/Si interface. Besides, breakdown of the dielectric film containing the nc-Si is also observed from the G–V characteristic.