Formation of Si Nanocrystals in SiO_x Films Induced by Thermal Plasma Jet Annealing and Its Application to Floating Gate Memory

摘要

We investigate formation of Si nanocrystals in SiO_x films induced by millisecond annealing using thermal plasma jet (TPJ). The crystalline growth is strongly dependent on the composition (x) of initial SiO_x, and the optimum x for Si nanocrystal precipitation in the present experiment was 1.7. By annealing the SiO_(1.7), significant increase in photoluminescence at 950 nm is obtained, and MOS memory fabricated by TPJ annealed SiO_2/SiO_(1.7)/SiO_2 stack on Si (100) show clear hysteresis as large as 7.5 V.