Atomic origin of high-temperature electron trapping in metal-oxide-semiconductor devices

MOSFETs based on wide-band-gap semiconductors are suitable for operation at high temperature, at which additional atomic-scale processes that are benign at lower temperatures can get activated, resulting in device degradation. Recently, significant enhancement of electron trapping was observed under positive bias in SiC MOSFETs at temperatures higher than 150 °C. Here, we report first-principles calculations showing that the enhanced electron trapping is associated with thermally activated capturing of a second electron by an oxygen vacancy in SiO2 by which the vacancy transforms into a structure that comprises one Si dangling bond and a bond between a five-fold and a four-fold Si atoms. The results suggest a key role of oxygen vacancies and their structural reconfigurations in the reliability of high-temperature MOS devices.

[1]  peixiong zhao,et al.  Structure, properties, and dynamics of oxygen vacancies in amorphous SiO2. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[2]  A. Shluger,et al.  Structure and properties of defects in amorphous silica: new insights from embedded cluster calculations , 2005 .

[3]  Ronald Green,et al.  Temperature-Dependence of SiC MOSFET Threshold-Voltage Instability , 2008 .

[4]  Ronald Green,et al.  (Invited) Effect of Threshold-Voltage Instability on SiC Power MOSFET High-Temperature Reliability , 2011 .

[5]  Max J. Schulz,et al.  Band offsets and electronic structure of SiC/SiO2 interfaces , 1996 .

[6]  Aivars J. Lelis,et al.  Basic Mechanisms of Threshold-Voltage Instability and Implications for Reliability Testing of SiC MOSFETs , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[7]  Kresse,et al.  Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set. , 1996, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[8]  peixiong zhao,et al.  Atomic-scale origins of bias-temperature instabilities in SiC–SiO2 structures , 2011 .

[9]  A. Agarwal,et al.  SiC power-switching devices-the second electronics revolution? , 2002, Proc. IEEE.

[10]  G. Henkelman,et al.  Improved tangent estimate in the nudged elastic band method for finding minimum energy paths and saddle points , 2000 .

[11]  Gustavo E. Scuseria,et al.  Erratum: “Hybrid functionals based on a screened Coulomb potential” [J. Chem. Phys. 118, 8207 (2003)] , 2006 .

[12]  R. Car,et al.  Structure and hyperfine parameters of E'(1) centers in a-quartz and in vitreous SiO2 , 1997 .

[13]  R. Laughlin.  Optical absorption edge of SiO 2 , 1980 .

[14]  G. Kresse,et al.  From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method , 1999 .

[15]  peixiong zhao,et al.  The structure, properties, and dynamics of oxygen vacancies in amorphous SiO/sub 2/ , 2002 .

[16]  D. Schroder,et al.  Evidence of negative bias temperature instability in 4H-SiC metal oxide semiconductor capacitors , 2007 .

[17]  peixiong zhao,et al.  Physical mechanisms of negative-bias temperature instability , 2005 .

[18]  Ronald Green,et al.  High-Temperature Reliability of SiC Power MOSFETs , 2011 .

[19]  P. Blöchl.  First-principles calculations of defects in oxygen-deficient silica exposed to hydrogen , 2000 .

[20]  A. Khaligh,et al.  Power electronics intensive solutions for advanced electric, hybrid electric, and fuel cell vehicular power systems , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[21]  D. Schroder,et al.  Negative bias temperature instability: Road to cross in deep submicron silicon semiconductor manufacturing , 2003 .

[22]  A. Oshiyama.  Hole-Injection-Induced Structural Transformation of Oxygen Vacancy in α-Quartz , 1998 .

[23]  Alex Zunger,et al.  Assessment of correction methods for the band-gap problem and for finite-size effects in supercell defect calculations: Case studies for ZnO and GaAs , 2008 .

[24]  F. Blaabjerg,et al.  Power electronics as efficient interface in dispersed power generation systems , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.