Interface traps effect on the charge transport mechanisms in metal oxide semiconductor structures based on silicon nanocrystals

The transport phenomena in Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) structures having silicon nanocrystals (Si-NCs) inside the dielectric layer has been investigated by high frequency Capacitance-Voltage (C-V) method and the Deep-Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS). For the reference samples without Si-NCs, we observe a slow electron trap for a large temperature range, which is probably a response of a series electron traps having a very close energy levels. A clear series of electron traps are evidenced in DLTS spectrum for MOS samples with Si-NCs. Their activation energies are comprised between 0.28 eV and 0.45 eV. Moreover, we observe in this DLTS spectrum, a single peak that appears at low temperature which we attributed to Si-NCs response. In MOS structure without Si-NCs, the conduction mechanism is dominated by the thermionic fast emission/capture of charge carriers from the highly doped polysilicon layer to Si-substrate through interface trap-states. However, at low temperature, the tunneling of charge carriers from highly Poly-Si to Si-substrate trough the trapping/detrapping mechanism in the Si-NCs contributed to the conduction mechanism for MOS with Si-NCs. These results are helpful to understand the principle of charge transport of MOS structures having a Si-NCs in the SiOx = 1.5 oxide matrix.