Study of Fowler-Nordheim tunneling current oscillations of thin insulator MOS structure by wave interference method

In this paper, a novel method - electron waves interference method - is pre sented to study Fowler-Nordheim tunneling current oscillations. Using this new analysis, the applied voltage V at the extrema of Fowler-Nordheim tunne ling oscillations can be accurately and simply determined. A phase shift of pi/4 when electron traverses the forbidden band of perfect medium barrier once is observed by using interference method. Some phenomena observed in e xperiment can be easy to explain by this method. The extrema of oscillation s can be used to determine the barrier thickness in metal-oxide-semiconduct or device and the average effective electron mass in the conduction band of the barrier. An important feature of this method is that it is applicable to various shapes of potential barriers and wells. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.