Spatially resolved diagnosis of stress-induced breakdown in oxide dots by in situ conducting atomic force microscopy

Abstract

We report an investigation on the stress-induced breakdown (BD) in ultrathin oxide grown by atomic force microscopy (AFM oxide). A conducting atomic force microscopy (c-AFM) technique was employed to stress the AFM oxide and examine its BD behavior. It was found that thermal annealing has a strong impact on the dielectric strength of AFM oxide. The stress-induced trap generation probability, Pt, could be reduced by ∼50% after annealing the oxide at elevated temperatures. Such a thermal effect is related to the local structural relaxation and trap state minimization in AFM oxide upon annealing. The spatially resolved current images allow a microscopic diagnosis of the distribution of BD sites: isolated single BD spots and laterally propagated BD areas were observed in an oxide dot. Soft and hard breakdown sites were also distinguished on the current images.