Characterization of the charging effect with In2O3 and SnO2 nano-particles in a polymer layer

Abstract

The charge storage of a distributed floating gate with nano-particles offers the possibility for attractive memory device, a nano-floating gate memory (NFGM), one of the alternatives to a nonvolatile flash memory. We have fabricated metal-oxide nano-particles dispersed within a polymer matrix, which affords a possibility for tunneling and control layers for the NFGM structure. Self-assembled metal-oxide nano-particles are created by using a chemical reaction between the polymer layers and 2 to 10-nm-thick thin metal films. Then, metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) structures are formed on Si substrates by using the metal-oxide nano-particles and dielectric polymer layers. Electrical characterizations of the In2O3 and SnO2 nano-particles were carried out by using capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements, then, the flat-band voltage shift due to charging of the electrons or holes in the metal-oxide nano-particles was obtained as 1.4 to 1.7 V.