Location, Structure, and Density of States of NBTI-Induced Defects in Plasma Nitrided pMOSFETs

The authors utilize a combination of DC-IV measurements and very sensitive electrically-detected electron spin resonance measurements called spin-dependent recombination to observe NBTI-induced defect centers in SiO₂ and plasma nitrided oxide (PNO)-based pMOSFETs. The paper present strong spectroscopic evidence that the dominating NBTI-induced defect observed in PNO-based devices is physically different than the Si/dielectric interface silicon dangling bond P_b0 and P_b1 defects observed in SiO₂ -based devices. The observations strongly indicate that the NBTI-induced defects in the PNO-based devices are located in the near interfacial region, within the dielectric. It is also likely that these defects exhibit a far narrower density of states than the NBTI-induced P _b0 and P_b1 defects in SiO₂-based devices. The authors tentatively assign the NBTI-induced defect in the PNO devices as K_N for NBTI