Cathodic arc deposition of nitrogen doped tetrahedral amorphous carbon for computer memories

Much interest has been shown in the use of tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) deposited by filtered cathodic arc as an inexpensive, easily produced, wide band-gap semiconductor in the fabrication of electronic devices. Around the world much of this interest has been in its potential use as a low electron-affinity field emitter for flat-screen displays. Recent observations of a nonvolatile memory effect in nitrogen doped ta-C at the University of Sydney suggest that new possibilities may exist for its use as a means of non-volatile digital information storage. Devices with switching times of 100 μs, read times of 100 ns, and effective memory retention times of the order of months have been fabricated. Nonvolatile memory phenomena observed in the electrical characteristics of nitrogen doped ta-C thin films suggests such traps may be useful as a means of digital information storage