Mechanism of leakage current through the nanoscale SiO2 layer

Abstract

We clarify the mechanism of leakage current through the nanoscale ultrathin silicon dioxide (SiO2) layer in a metal‐insulator‐semiconductor structure based on the multiple scatteringtheory when technologically important phosphorus dopedpolycrystallinesilicon is adopted as the gate electrode. We also derive an analytic expression for the direct tunneling current, and show that its measurement presents an excellent opportunity to determine the effective mass of an electron in the SiO2.