Modeling of current-voltage characteristics of metal/ultra-thin oxide/semiconductor structures

¹ Laboratoire d'Électronique Appliquée et d'Automatique (LEAA), Université Mohamed Ier, Faculté des Sciences, Dépt. de Physique, Oujda, Morocco
² Laboratoire de Physique du Solide (LPS), Université Mohamed Ier, Faculté des Sciences, Dépt. de Physique, Oujda, Morocco

Corresponding author: kassmi@sciences.univ-oujda.ac.ma

Received: 2 September 1999
Revised: 12 November 1999
Accepted: 2 December 1999
Published online: 15 March 2000

Abstract

In this paper we present the results of modeling concerning current-voltage (V < 0) characteristics of metal/ultra-thin oxide/semiconductor structures, where the oxide thickness varies from 45 Åto 80 Å. We analyze the theoretical influence of the temperature and Schottky effect, on the Fowler-Nordheim (FN) conduction. The results obtained show that these influences depend on the electric field in the oxide and the potential barrier at the metal/oxide interface. At the ambient temperature, the influence on this potential barrier is lower than 1.5% . However, it can reach 45% on the pre-exponential coefficient (K₁). It is therefore necessary to consider in the FN classical conduction expression a correction term that takes account of the temperature and Schottky effects. These results are validated experimentally by modeling at high field, the current-voltage characteristics of the realized structures. At low field, we have determined the excess current [3], which is due to defects localized in the oxide layer, according to the structure area and the oxide thickness. By modeling this excess current, we show that it is of FN type, and deduct that the effective defect barrier depends little on the structure area and the oxide thickness. By taking into account the effective barrier value and the corrective factors due to the temperature and Schottky effect, we determine the defect effective area and show that it is related to the breakdown field of the structures: when the defect effective area increases, the breakdown field decreases.