Nonvolatile field effect transistors based on protons and Si/SiO2Si structures

Recently, the authors have demonstrated that annealing Si/SiO2/Si structures in a hydrogen containing ambient introduces mobile H+ ions into the buried SiO2 layer. Changes in the H+ spatial distribution within the SiO2 layer were electrically monitored by current-voltage (I-V) measurements. The ability to directly probe reversible protonic motion in Si/SiO2/Si structures makes this an exemplar system to explore the physics and chemistry of hydrogen in the technologically relevant Si/SiO2 structure. In this work, they illustrate that this effect can be used as the basis for a programmable nonvolatile field effect transistor (NVFET) memory that may compete with other Si-based memory devices. The power of this novel device is its simplicity; it is based upon standard Si/SiO2/Si technology and forming gas annealing, a common treatment used in integrated circuit processing. They also briefly discuss the effects of radiation on its retention properties