We utilize a very sensitive electron spin resonance technique called spin-dependent tunneling to identify defect centers involved in the negative bias temperature instability in plasma-nitrided p-channel metal-oxide-silicon field-effect transistors. The defect's ²⁹Si hyperfine... (Read more)

Hydrogen is released from hydrogenated silicon nitride (SiN_x:H) during thermal treatments. The formation of molecular hydrogen (H₂) in SiN_x:H layers with low mass density is confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. However, no H₂ is observed in... (Read more)

A 1.0 nm silicon nitride (SiN) layer can prevent reaction between HfO₂ and Si completely. In this case, the interface state spectra obtained from x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements under bias have two peaks above and below the midgap, attributable to Si dangling bonds... (Read more)

Low pressure chemical vapor deposition of Si₃N₄ on oxidized Si (111) surfaces causes a change in the properties of the dominant interface defect, the P_b center, observed by electron paramagnetic resonance. The change in the signature of the... (Read more)

The authors modified the charge decay model of silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon-type memory at the temperatures above 150 °C. The modified model includes the effect of the internal electric field induced by the charges trapped in silicon nitride layer. The authors extracted the trap density... (Read more)

Using density functional theory, the interaction of hydrogen with a nitrogen vacancy in -Si₃N₄ is investigated. A single H atom was found to be energetically favorable over non- and doubly protonated vacancies. The traps composed of excess silicon and hydrogen have negative... (Read more)

Hydrogenation by high temperature rapid annealing of SiN_x:H is found to be very effective on the defects responsible for the carrier trapping effect in multicrystalline silicon. The passivation effect is reversible and is annihilated by a long thermal annealing. As for the... (Read more)

Room temperature photoluminescence (PL) properties of the Tb³⁺ ion implanted nonstoichiometric silicon nitride (Tb³⁺:SiN_x) and silicon dioxide (Tb³⁺:SiO_x) were studied. The films were deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor... (Read more)

Charge trapping properties of electrons and holes in ultrathin nitride-oxide-silicon (NOS) structures were quantitatively determined by variable-temperature electrostatic force microscopy (EFM). From charge retention characteristics obtained at temperatures between 250 and 370 °C and assuming... (Read more)

The energy spectrum of the traps and thermal stability of stored charge have been studied by the thermostimulated exoelectron emission method in hydrogenated H and deuterated D oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) multilayer stacks of silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS) nonvolatile memories. It is... (Read more)

Silicon oxynitride films were deposited using a plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition process. The bond configurations of the constituent atoms in the deposited film were analyzed using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Analysis of the Si 2p spectra showed the presence of... (Read more)

Interface defects related to negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) in an ultrathin plasma-nitrided SiON/ Si<100> system were characterized by using conductance–frequency measurements, electron-spin resonance measure- ments, and synchrotron radiation X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. It was confirmed that NBTI is reduced by using D₂-annealing instead of the usual H₂-annealing. Interfacial Si dangling bonds (P_b1 and P_b0 centers) were detected in a sample subjected to negative-bias temperature stress (NBTS). Although we suggest that NBTS also generates non-Pb defects, it does not seem to generate nitrogen dangling bonds. These results show that NBTI of the plasma-nitrided SiON/Si system is predominantly due to P_b depassivation. Plasma nitridation was also found to increase the P_b1/P_b0 density ratio, modify the P_b1 defect structure, and increase the latent interface trap density by generating Si suboxides at the interface. These changes are likely to be the causes of NBTI in ultrathin plasma-nitrided SiON/Si systems. (Read more)

Interfacial defect structures of NO-nitride oxide on Si(100) were characterized by electron spin resonance spectroscopy. We confirmed that the effective g values of the P_b1 center are affected by interfacial nitridation even at a small nitrogen concentration of 5 at. %, while those of the P_b0 center proved to be unchanged. We observed that the shifted P_b1 line appeared gradually with interfacial nitrogen concentration, which suggests that the nitrogen-induced modified structure substitutes for the original P_b1 structure. Angular variations of the shifted P_b1 lines were also significantly different from those of pure oxide. Based on our analysis, we attributed the g value shift of the P_b1 center to dangling bond tilting, caused by the displacement of nearest-neighbor Si atoms. (Read more)

Interface defects generated by negative-bias temperature stress (NBTS) in an ultrathin plasma- nitrided SiON/Si(100) system were characterized by using D₂ annealing, conductance-frequency measurements, and electron-spin resonance measurements. D₂ annealing was shown to lower... (Read more)

The influence of nitrogen concentration at a nitrided oxide/silicon interface on the activation energies of both near-interface fixed-charge trapping and interface state generation caused by negative bias temperature instability stress has been studied quantitatively. It is observed that the charge... (Read more)

We present an overview of negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) commonly observed in p-channel metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors when stressed with negative gate voltages at elevated temperatures. We discuss the results of such stress on device and circuit... (Read more)

We used a density functional method to investigate the mechanism of negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) and resultant structural changes of Si/SiO₂ and Si/SiO_xN_y interfaces. The reaction energies for the water- and hydrogen-originated... (Read more)

We have characterized the leakage current paths of ultra-thin gate dielectrics using spin-dependent tunneling (SDT) spectroscopy. A spin-dependent current was detected in metal-oxide-semiconductor diodes with chemical-vapor-deposition SiN gate films with thickness less than 3 nm. We examined the nature of the trap sites in terms of g-value, bias-dependent signal intensity, and magnetic-field orientation dependence. The main feature of the observed spectrum is attributed to a paramagnetic Si site in the SiN films. By using a quantitative model of electron spin-polarization, we were able to estimate the ratio of trap-assisted current to the total leakage current. (Read more)

We show that Cat-CVD silicon nitride films contain more than 1019 cm−3 nitrogen-bonded Si dangling bonds, similarly to the case for conventional CVD films. However, the charge-trapping behavior of the Cat-CVD films is found to be quite different, in spite of the same origin for the dominant... (Read more)

Photoluminescence (PL) properties of SiNx (0.51<x<1.3) films are studied. A visible luminescence near the UV region is observed and the PL intensity and peak positions are found to be governed by the excess silicon composition. A large scale potential fluctuation due to the spatial... (Read more)

The properties of silicon nitride (SiN_x) films produced by the catalytic chemical vapor deposition (cat-CVD) method are extensively studied for device application. In the cat-CVD method, the deposition gases such as a silane (SiH₄) and ammonia (NH₃) gas... (Read more)

We report the observation of both silicon and nitrogen paramagnetic defect centers using X-band and Q-band electron spin resonance microwave excitation frequencies. By using two different microwave frequencies along with a computer analysis of the resonance lineshapes, we have been... (Read more)

We have investigated the effects of different post-deposition temperature anneals and N-H concentrations, on the generation of ultraviolet (UV)-induced two-coordinated nitrogen dangling bonds in plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) silicon nitride films using electron spin resonance... (Read more)

We report the first observation of ¹⁴N nearest-neighbor hyperfine interactions with an unpaired electron on silicon dangling-bond centers, K centers, in silicon nitride generated by ultraviolet or gamma irradiation. We observe this interaction using electron-nuclear double-resonance... (Read more)

We report the first definitive identification of nitrogen dangling bonds in silicon nitride. A computer analysis of ¹⁴N hyperfine parameters shows that the unpaired electron is strongly localized on the central nitrogen atom and that the unpaired electron?s wave function is almost... (Read more)

A recent study by Krick and coworkers provided the first direct evidence associating a specific point-defect with trapping phenomena in silicon nitride films. Krick and coworkers demonstrated that silicon “dangling bond” centers in silicon nitride films are electrically neutral when... (Read more)