Determination of the Si-SiO/sub 2/ barrier height from the Fowler-Nordheim plot

It is shown that, even considering a field-dependent Si-SiO/sub 2/ barrier height for electron tunneling as predicted by the quantum-mechanical (QM) modeling of Si-SiO/sub 2/ interfaces, the Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) plot is linear. It is proved that the equivalent barrier height extracted from the graph slope is not representative of the actual field-dependent barrier. The problem of correctly estimating the oxide field to be used in F-N plots is also addressed.<
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