Effects of MoSi2 nanocrystals in nonvolatile memory devices

Abstract

This work has demonstrated the electron charging and discharging effects of MoSi₂ nanocrystals embedded in the a-Si layer of a nonvolatile memory (NVM) structure. The MoSi₂ nanocrystals were formed by the thermal annealing of the Mo-Si layer. A very thin silicon dioxide layer of 5 nm was deposited as the tunnel dielectric and a significant capacitance-voltage hysteresis of voltage shift was observed by using another SiO₂ layer as the control oxide. The memory window of the SiO₂/Mo-Si/SiO₂ structure with MoSi₂ nanocrystals is sufficiently high even under low-voltage programming.