Distinction between silicon and oxide traps using single-trap spectroscopy

In this work, both time domain random telegraph noise (RTN) and frequency domain Lorentzian spectra due to generation–recombination (GR) centres are studied in ultra-thin buried oxide (UTBOX) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nMOSFETs. As will be shown, for a Si film-related RTN, the corner frequency is moderately dependent on the gate voltage, while a strong VGS dependence is found for an oxide RTN. This translates in the time domain in a different behaviour of the capture and the emission time constants and their ratio: for an oxide RTN, an exponential gate voltage dependence is observed for the time constant ratio, from which the trap depth in the oxide can be derived. On the other hand, for a defect in the silicon film, the ratio remains constant around one, indicating that the Fermi level is close to the trap level in that case. Based on this analysis, one can distinguish RTN due to gate oxide traps from RTN due to silicon film defects.

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