Correlation of stress-induced leakage current in thin oxides with trap generation inside the oxides

Increases in pre-tunneling leakage currents in thin oxides after the oxides are subjected to high voltage stresses are correlated with the number of traps generated inside of the oxides by the high-voltage stresses. The densities of the traps are calculated using the tunneling front model and analyzing the transient currents that flowed through the oxide after removal of the stress voltage pulses. It is found that the trap distributions are relatively uniform throughout the small portion of the oxide sampled by the transient currents. The trap densities increase as the cube root of the fluence of electrons that passes through the oxide during the stress, independent of the stress polarity. The voltage dependence of the low-level pretunneling current is dependent on the sequence in which the stress voltage polarities and the low-level current measurement polarities are applied. The portion of the low-level pre-tunneling current that is not dependent on the polarity sequence is best fitted by a voltage dependence consistent with Schottky emission.>