The role of native traps on the tunneling characteristics of ultra-thin (1.5-3 nm) oxides

In this paper we report experiments and simulations on thin oxide (1.5-3 nm ) MOS devices, showing that native traps can play a dominant role in the tu nneling characteristics of such oxides. The number of traps, and thus their role on the tunneling current, can be minimized by careful and simple proc essing: in this case traps affect the tunneling current in relatively thick oxides while their role vanishes at oxide thicknesses of 2 nm and below.