Hybrid silicon-organic nanoparticle memory device

We demonstrate a nonvolatile electrically erasable programmable read-only memory device using gold nanoparticles as charge storage elements deposited at room temperature by chemical processing. The nanoparticles are deposited over a thermal silicon dioxide layer that insulates them from the device silicon channel. An organic insulator deposited by the Langmuir-Blodget technique at room temperature separates the aluminum gate electrode from the nanoparticles. The device exhibits significant threshold voltage shifts after application of low-voltage pulses (less than or equal to+/-6 V) to the gate and has nonvolatile retention time characteristics. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.