A Review on Conduction Mechanisms in Dielectric Films

Fu-Chien Chiu

doi:10.1155/2014/578168

Abstract

The conduction mechanisms in dielectric films are crucial to the successful applications of dielectric materials. There are two types of conduction mechanisms in dielectric films, that is, electrode-limited conduction mechanism and bulk-limited conduction mechanism. The electrode-limited conduction mechanism depends on the electrical properties at the electrode-dielectric interface. Based on this type of conduction mechanism, the physical properties of the barrier height at the electrode-dielectric interface and the effective mass of the conduction carriers in dielectric films can be extracted. The bulk-limited conduction mechanism depends on the electrical properties of the dielectric itself. According to the analyses of bulk-limited conduction mechanisms, several important physical parameters in the dielectric films can be obtained, including the trap level, the trap spacing, the trap density, the carrier drift mobility, the dielectric relaxation time, and the density of states in the conduction band. In this paper, the analytical methods of conduction mechanisms in dielectric films are discussed in detail.

Highlights

The application of dielectric films has always been a very important subject for the semiconductor industry and the scientific community. This is especially true for metal-oxidesemiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) technology in integrated circuits (ICs)
The conduction current through the dielectric film is noticeable when a relatively large electric field is applied. These noticeable conduction currents are owing to many different conduction mechanisms, which is critical to the applications of the dielectric films
The gate dielectric of MOSFETs, the capacitor dielectric of dynamic random access memories, and the tunneling dielectric of Flash memories are of top importance to the IC applications

Summary

Introduction

The application of dielectric films has always been a very important subject for the semiconductor industry and the scientific community. The conduction current through the dielectric film is noticeable when a relatively large electric field is applied. These noticeable conduction currents are owing to many different conduction mechanisms, which is critical to the applications of the dielectric films. The gate dielectric of MOSFETs, the capacitor dielectric of dynamic random access memories, and the tunneling dielectric of Flash memories are of top importance to the IC applications In these cases, the conduction current must be lower than a certain level to meet the specific reliability criteria under normal operation of the devices.

Electrode-Limited Conduction Mechanisms

RPN-SiON

Bulk-Limited Conduction Mechanisms

Hopping conduction

Summary