Experimental study on the oxide trap coupling effect in metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors with HfO2 gate dielectrics

• Published in: Applied physics letters Vol. 104; no. 26
• Main Authors: Ren, Pengpeng, Wang, Runsheng, Jiang, Xiaobo, Qiu, Yingxin, Liu, Changze, Huang, Ru
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 30-06-2014
• Subjects: Applied physics; Carrier density; Circuits; Coupling; Dependence; Dielectrics; Field effect transistors; Hafnium oxide; Metal oxide semiconductors; Metal oxides; MOSFETs; Perturbation; Semiconductor devices; Transistors; Variation
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4885394

In this Letter, the coupling effect between multi-traps in HfO2 gate dielectrics is experimentally studied in scaled high-κ/metal-gate metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs). Deviated from conventional understanding, mechanism that affects trap coupling is found, which is originated from local carrier density perturbation due to random dopant fluctuation (RDF) in the channel. The competition of conventional Coulomb repulsion effect and RDF induced local carrier density perturbation effect results in the nonmonotonic voltage dependence of trap coupling intensity.