Memory Effects in Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Capacitors Incorporating Dispensed Highly Mono-disperse One-Nanometer Silicon Nanoparticles

MOS capacitors incorporating ex-situ produced, colloidal, highly mono-disperse, spherical, 1 nm Si nanoparticles were fabricated and evaluated for potential use as charge storage elements in future non-volatile memory devices. The CV characteristics are well behaved and agree with similarly fabricated zero-nanoparticle control samples and with an ideal simulation. Unlike larger particle systems, the demonstrated memory effect exhibits effectively pure hole storage. The nature of charging i.e. hole-type vs. electron-type may be understood in terms of the novel characteristics of ultra-small Si particles: large energy gap, large charging energy, and consequently a small electron affinity.