Bandgap engineering of tunnel oxide with multistacked layers of Al2O3/HfO2/SiO2 for Au-nanocrystal memory application

Charge storage characteristics of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure containing Au nanocrystals on tunnel oxide composed of triply stacked SiO2, HfO2, and Al2O3 layers were studied. Significantly high charge injection and detrapping efficiency for program and erase operations along with a satisfactory long-term charge retention were obtained from the above MOS structure. It is attributed to the bandgap engineering of tunnel oxide with a multistacked concave barrier, from which the effective thickness of the tunneling barrier can be greatly reduced under a moderate bias, while a thick and high barrier is retained for charge retention. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.