We present the TANOS (Si-Oxide-SiN-Al2O3-TaN) cell with 40 Å-thick tunnel oxide erased by Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling of hole. Thanks to introducing high-k dielectrics, alumina (Al2O3) as a blocking oxide, the erase threshold voltage can be maintained to less than - 3.0 V, meaning hole-trapping in SiN. We extracted the nitride trap densities of electron and hole for the TANOS cell. It is demonstrated that the TANOS structure is very available to investigate the trap density with shallower energy. The energy level of hole trap (1.28 eV) is found to be deeper than that of electron (0.8 eV). As the cycling stress is performed, persistent hole-trapping is observed unlike endurance characteristics of conventional floating-gate cell. The hole trapping during the cycling stress can be attributed to two possibilities. The injected holes are trapped in neutral trap of tunnel oxide and residue of holes which is not somewhat compensated by injected electrons may be accumulated in SiN. It is demonstrated the erase operation of the TANOS cell is governed by Fowler-Nordheim tunneling of hole due to the field concentration across the tunnel oxide.

Metallic thin films of LaNiO3 (LNO) have been prepared by the sol-gel method using lanthanum nitrate [La(NO3)3·6H2O] and nickel acetate [Ni(CH3COO)2·4H2O] as raw materials. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and electrical measurements were used to characterize the multilayer LNO thin films. The perovskite phase appears after annealing at temperatures above 600 °C. LNO thin films are n-type metallic oxide. The lowest resistivity is 621 °Ω-cm after annealing at 600 °C, and the carrier concentration is 6.09×1022/cm3.

A simple combinatorial approach for studying chemical and physical vapor deposition (CVD and PVD) nanoparticle growth is presented utilizing temperature and precursor flux gradients across sample surfaces. Large temperature gradients (450-700 °C) are induced covering the entire range of interest for most CVD and PVD processes. Precursor flux gradients may also be introduced simultaneously or separately using a tungsten cracking filament mounted on a translation arm. Theory and calibration experiments are explained and results from a study on Ge nanoparticle growth on HfO2 surfaces are presented and analyzed. This method drastically decreases experimental time required to investigate nanoparticle growth and identify optimum deposition conditions. Furthermore, this approach greatly facilitates preparation of library samples containing a wide range (several orders of magnitude) in variation of nanoparticle sizes, density, and composition for subsequent studies.

Thin silicon dioxide (SiO2) on Si layers with embedded germanium nanocrystals (Ge-ncs) were fabricated using 74Ge+-implantation at 15 keV and subsequent annealing. Transmission electron microscopy and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry have been used to study the Ge redistribution in the SiO2 films as a function of implantation dose under specific annealing conditions. At low implantation doses, Germanium is found to segregate at the Si/SiO2 interface leading to poor electrical properties. At higher doses and when the disorder limit of one displacement per atom is reached at the interface, transmission electron microscopy revealed the formation of a Ge-nc layer array located close to the Si/SiO2 interface and an another one inside the SiO2 host material. This near-interface high density (>1012 ncs/cm2) nc-layer is found to act as a floating gate embedded within the silicon dioxide. Capacitance-voltage measurements performed on metal-oxide-semiconductor structures containing such implanted SiO2 layers show significant memory properties (few volts hysteresis) at low programming voltages (<|10V|) due to the presence of Ge-ncs near the Si/SiO2 interface

Nobel metals in contact with perovskite metal oxides, Pr1−xCaxMnO3 (PCMO) for example, have shown switching resistance values, with a couple of orders of magnitude difference, upon the stimulation of electrical pulses. In this paper, the Pt/PCMO/Pt structures were made through e-beam evaporation (Pt electrodes) and RF sputtering (PCMO films) for the switching mechanism study. Specially designed experiments along with extensive electrical characterizations were performed on the Pt/PCMO/Pt structure. The existence of a contact resistance, or an interfacial layer, between Pt electrodes and PCMO was evident by simply measuring initial resistance (R0) of the stack against PMCO film thickness. Temperature dependence of the R0 and the time-bias tests were used to study the transport mechanism in the bulk of PCMO and the interfacial layer. Above a threshold voltage, the transport changes from mainly electronic to ionic conduction especially at the interfaces, causing electrode polarization. The transient characteristics of Pt/PCMO/Pt stack, i.e. the response to the pulsing in the time domain, were characterized in the frequency domain instead through the admittance spectroscopy measurements. The temperature dependence of Cole-Cole plots were used to study the polarized interfacial layer or interface dipole polarization (IDP). This IDP layer is the origin of contact resistance and also responsible for the uni-polar long-short switching because the calculated relaxation time constants of the IDP corresponding to low resistive state (LRS) and high resistive state (HRS) were similar to the experimental values. Therefore, the so-called bi-stable resistive states are just two different IDP states: one is much leakier than the other.

Germanium nanoparticles are grown on HfO2 substrates by hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD). The oxidation and thermal stability of these unmodified Ge nanoparticles are determined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Core-shell nanoparticles were then prepared by growing the Ge cores with HWCVD and selectively growing Si or C shell layers on the Ge cores by conventional CVD. The formation of core-shell nanoparticles was monitored with XPS and low energy ion scattering. Large differences are observed in the thermal stability and oxide formation for unmodified Ge and the different core-shell nanoparticles.

Mn-substituted BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films were formed by chemical solutions deposition on Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si(100) structures. Effects of the Mn-substitution on the structure and ferroelectricity of BFO films were examined. We found that the lattice structure of the film is sensitive to the Mn-substitution and the secondary phase is appears in 50% Mn-substituted BFO films. The leakage current were increased with the Mn-substitution. However, the 5% Mn-substituted BFO film shows low leakage current than undoped BFO films in a high electric field than 0.5 MV/cm. Due to the low leakage current in Mn-doped 3, 5 and 7% BFO films, the saturated P-E hysteresis loops with remanent polarization around 100 μC/cm2 were obtained at RT.