Charge trapping characteristics of high-k $HfO_2$ layer for tunnel barrier engineered nonvolatile memory application

엔지니어드 터널베리어 메모리 적용을 위한 $HfO_2$ 층의 전하 트랩핑 특성

It is desirable to choose a high-k material having a large band offset with the tunneling oxide and a deep trapping level for use as the charge trapping layer to achieve high PIE (Programming/erasing) speeds and good reliability, respectively. In this paper, charge trapping and tunneling characteristics of high-k hafnium oxide ($HfO_2$) layer with various thicknesses were investigated for applications of tunnel barrier engineered nonvolatile memory. A critical thickness of $HfO_2$ layer for suppressing the charge trapping and enhancing the tunneling sensitivity of tunnel barrier were developed. Also, the charge trap centroid and charge trap density were extracted by constant current stress (CCS) method. As a result, the optimization of $HfO_2$ thickness considerably improved the performances of non-volatile memory(NVM).