TY - JOUR
T1 - Electrical conduction in silicon nitrides deposited by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition
AU - Tao, Meng
AU - Park, Daegypu
AU - Mohammad, S. Noor
AU - Li, Ding
AU - Botchkerav, Andrei E.
AU - Morkoç, Hadis
N1 - Funding Information:
The research is supported by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the US Department of Energy through the Materials Research Laboratory. The authors are grateful to Mr Z. H. Wang, and Dr A. Rockett and Dr J. Abelson for collaborations in this area of research, and appreciate fruitful discussions with Mr Z. F. Fan, Dr A. Salvador and Dr B Sverdlov. Very constructive comments by two referees of the paper are gratefully acknowledged. One of the authors (M. T.) acknowledges valuable discussions with Dr P. Ordejbn, and another (S. N. M.) with Mr G. Martin, Professor S. T. H. Abidi and Professor R. L. Carter.
PY - 1996/4
Y1 - 1996/4
N2 - Current conduction in Si-rich and stoichiometric silicon nitride as well as in oxynitride is studied in detail. Representative samples from each of the three categories exhibit Ohmic, Poole-Frenkel and Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling currents to differing extents. All the samples show an Ohmic region at low electric fields. The oxynitride sample has the largest Ohmic region, and the Si-rich sample the smallest. Under intermediate and high fields, the oxynitride sample shows only Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling, but the Si-rich sample is dominated by Poole-Frenkel emission. The stoichiometric sample shows a Poole-Frenkel region at intermediate fields and a Fowler-Nordheim region at high fields. These results indicate that the oxynitride sample has the lowest density of traps, and the Si-rich sample has the highest. Our observations are explained in terms of the flexibility of bonding configurations of N and O atoms, and the formation of Si‒Si bonds in Si-rich silicon nitride.
AB - Current conduction in Si-rich and stoichiometric silicon nitride as well as in oxynitride is studied in detail. Representative samples from each of the three categories exhibit Ohmic, Poole-Frenkel and Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling currents to differing extents. All the samples show an Ohmic region at low electric fields. The oxynitride sample has the largest Ohmic region, and the Si-rich sample the smallest. Under intermediate and high fields, the oxynitride sample shows only Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling, but the Si-rich sample is dominated by Poole-Frenkel emission. The stoichiometric sample shows a Poole-Frenkel region at intermediate fields and a Fowler-Nordheim region at high fields. These results indicate that the oxynitride sample has the lowest density of traps, and the Si-rich sample has the highest. Our observations are explained in terms of the flexibility of bonding configurations of N and O atoms, and the formation of Si‒Si bonds in Si-rich silicon nitride.
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U2 - 10.1080/13642819608239148
DO - 10.1080/13642819608239148
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:7244262119
VL - 73
SP - 723
EP - 736
JO - Philosophical Magazine B: Physics of Condensed Matter; Statistical Mechanics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Properties
JF - Philosophical Magazine B: Physics of Condensed Matter; Statistical Mechanics, Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Properties
SN - 1364-2812
IS - 4
ER -