Carrier conduction and trapping in metal-nitride-oxide-semiconductor structures

Abstract

Carrier conduction and trapping in metal-nitride-oxide-semiconductor structures are investigated. It is clearly shown that holes dominate the carrier conduction in the nitride for both gate polarities, and electrons injected into the nitride from a cathode are almost completely annihilated by recombination in the nitride with holes injected from an anode, which is revealed by an induced junction technique. A model that the memory traps in the nitride act as the recombination centers in steady-state conditions is proposed. The recombination distance, the capture cross section, and the density of the memory traps or the recombination centers are estimated to be 81 Å, 2.86×10−13 cm2, and 4.32×1018/cm3, respectively, by fitting the experimental results with the theory based on the proposed model.