Dielectric Breakdown in 2D Layered Hexagonal Boron Nitride — The Knowns and the Unknowns

Dielectric breakdown is one of the critical failure mechanisms at the front-end that has attracted academics and industrial scientists alike, for several decades now, with the aim of understanding its physical origin, statistical nature and electrical impact on the device and circuit performance, reliability and variability. A major portion of the effort has dealt with studying breakdown in SiO2 and HfO2, which are the two most common bulk dielectric materials used in silicon CMOS technology. While there are several new high-κ materials that are being used for logic and memory technology, the advent of graphene based nanoelectronics for energy efficient flexible / wearable applications has intensified the interest to explore suitable 2D materials that could serve as a good insulator on a graphene platform. While fluorographene was one of the plausible candidates, it turns out that hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) appears to be a potential candidate for flexible electronics. The current state of understanding on the breakdown kinetics in h-BN has been very myopic and superficial. As such, it is timely to review the current state of understanding of breakdown in h-BN and discuss the knowns and the unknowns in this field, which could further motivate research groups to create deeper understanding of this important topic. This study documents the recent findings from various research groups pertaining to breakdown in h-BN in a systematic manner from multiple perspectives - growth, electrical characterization, physical analysis and statistical modeling.

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