Vertical Flash memory devices with Protein-assembled Nanocrystal floating gate and A12O3 control oxide

Summary form only given. In this work we investigated vertical flash memory devices with Al₂O₃ as control oxide with protein mediated self assembled PbSe nanocrystals used as floating gate. The introduction of high-k dielectric as control oxide provides lower voltage/faster operation and hence less power consumption compared with the devices fabricated with SiO₂ as control oxide. For appropriate memory operation the dielectric permittivity, conduction/valence band offset and thickness of the high-k material have to be properly engineered. Higher permittivity ensures better capacitance and scalability; higher band offset improves retention and programming window. Al₂O₃ has the potential to be the high-k replacement of inter-poly oxide due to its relatively high electron and hole barrier heights and high permittivity.