Observation of Quantum Confinement Effects in Nanocrystalline Silicon Dot Floating Gate Single Electron Memory Devices

MRS Online Proceedings Library volume 737, Article number: 113 (2002) Cite this article

Abstract

Electron charging and discharging processes in floating gate MOS memory based on nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si) dots were investigated at room temperature using capacitance-voltage (C-V) and conductance-voltage (G-V) measurements. Sequential electron discharging processes from nc-Si dots manifest themselves clearly in G-V spectroscopy after charging of the dots. According to the conductance peak structure resulting from the Coulomb blockade as well as quantum confinement effects of nc-Si dots, electron-addition energy is estimated to be 50 meV. Taking the electron-charging energy between the silicon substrate and the floating dot (30 meV) into account, the quantum confinement energy is found to be comparable to the electron charging energy for an nc-Si dot of 8 nm in diameter embedded in the silicon oxide.

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Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Dr. K. Arai and Mr. J. Oomachi for their help with nc-Si dots deposition processes and Mr. R. Nakamura for his help with SiO2 deposition process. Funding was supported by a grant-in aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education and by the Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) program of the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST).

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  1. Research Center for Quantum Effect Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 O-okayama, Meguro-Ku, Tokyo, 152-8552, Japan

    Shaoyun Huang, Souri Banerjee & Shunri Oda

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  1. Shaoyun Huang
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  2. Souri Banerjee
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  3. Shunri Oda
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Correspondence to Shaoyun Huang.

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Huang, S., Banerjee, S. & Oda, S. Observation of Quantum Confinement Effects in Nanocrystalline Silicon Dot Floating Gate Single Electron Memory Devices. MRS Online Proceedings Library 737, 113 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-737-F11.3

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