DEPENDENCE OF THE I-V CURVE OF A METAL-INSULATOR-SEMICONDUCTOR SWITCHON INSULATOR THICKNESS - AN EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION

Although the metal insulator semiconductor snitch (Al/SiO2/n-Si/p-Si) has been investigated for quite some time, there has been no systemati c report on the influence of the oxide thickness on the current-voltag e (I-Tr) curve. We fabricated four types of metal insulator semiconduc tor snitches where the only intentional difference was the thickness o f the oxide. We observed, both experimentally and by simulation, that the I-V curves of these devices are very sensitive to the oxide thickn ess. While the simulated curves only agree with the measured ones in c ertain trends, the simulation provides some insight to the operation o f the device. The onset of the negative resistance region in the curve is so sensitive to the electron and hole tunneling currents that the these devices could be used to characterize ultrathin oxides. Extremel y high current densities (10(3) A/cm(2)) have been driven through the ultrathin oxides without significantly changing the device characteris tics. ?We believe this is the highest, steady-state, current density t hrough an oxide reported to date.