Boron Vacancies Causing Breakdown in 2D Layered Hexagonal Boron Nitride Dielectrics

Dielectric breakdown in 2D insulating films for future logic device technology is not well understood yet, in contrast to the extensive insight we have in the breakdown of bulk dielectric films, such as HfO
₂
and SiO
₂
. In this letter, we investigate the stochastic nature of breakdown (BD) in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) films using ramp voltage stress and examine the BD trends as a function of stress polarity, area, and temperature. We present evidence that points to a non-Weibull distribution for h-BN BD and use the multi-scale physics-based simulations to extract the energetics of the defects that are precursors to BD, which happens to be boron vacancies.