SIMPLIFIED CLOSED-FORM TRAP-ASSISTED TUNNELING MODEL APPLIED TO NITRIDED OXIDE DIELECTRIC CAPACITORS

Conduction has been studied in ultrathin nitrided oxide, re-oxidized nitrided oxide, and nitrogen-annealed nitrided oxide film capacitors in which the nitridation step was performed by a low-partial-pressure nitridation technique. Results indicate that, as well as some degree of barrier lowering due to the build-up of nitrogen at the injecting interface, a trap-assisted mechanism could be responsible for the enhanced conduction exhibited by the nitrided oxide devices. A simplified closed-form trap-assisted tunneling model is employed that produces a fit to the data with a trap depth of 2.1 eV. The difference between this trap model and a model requiring numerical integration was negligibly small (approximately 2%).