A Nonvolatile Memory Capacitor Based on a Double Gold Nanocrystal Storing Layer and High-k Dielectric Tunneling and Control Layers

We present a metal-insulator-semiconductor nonvolatile memory capacitor based on two gold nanoparticle charge storage layers, two layers, and a multilayer HfNO/HfTiO stack. The device exhibits an equivalent oxide thickness of 7.3 nm, a hysteresis of 15 V at a gate voltage of to −8 V, and a storage charge density of . A leakage of at −10 V, a breakdown voltage of 13.3 V, and good retention properties with a hysteresis window of 10 V following more than 10 h of consecutive write/erase operations with a ±7 V swing were demonstrated. The capacitor characteristics are frequency-independent in the 10 kHz–1 MHz range.