Study of the charge leakage of dual layer Pt metal nanocrystal-based high-κ/SiO2 flash memory cell - a relaxation current point of view

By comparing the relaxation current with pure Al
₂
O
₃
layer, we postulate that the relaxation process of the dual layer Pt nanocrystal-based Al
₂
O
₃
/SiO
₂
stack mainly arise from the charge leak of the metal nanocrystals, which probably follows the Poole-Frankel behavior. The extracted relaxation current from the metal nanocrystals and its charge leak time constant provide a simple and effective characterization tool to detect the retention property of this Flash memory cell.