Charge trapping properties at silicon nitride/silicon oxide interface studied by variable-temperature electrostatic force microscopy

Charge trapping properties of electrons and holes in ultrathin nitride-oxide-silicon (NOS) structures were quantitatively determined by variable-temperature electrostatic force microscopy (EFM). From charge retention characteristics obtained at temperatures between 250 and 370 °C and assuming that the dominant charge decay mechanism is thermal emission followed by oxide tunneling, we find that there are considerable deep trap centers at the nitride-oxide interface. For electron, the interface trap energy and density were determined to be about 1.52 eV and 1.46×10¹² cm^-2, respectively. For hole, these are about 1.01 eV and 1.08×10¹² cm^-2, respectively. In addition, the capture cross section of electron can be extracted to be 4.8×10^-16 cm². The qualitative and quantitative determination of charge trapping properties and possible charge decay mechanism reported in this work can be very useful for the characterization of oxide-nitride-silicon based charge storage devices.