Measurements of the fluctuations in the tunneling current It through a thin SiO2 insulating layer, by means of an ultralow noise measurement set, showed that after a first time interval in which its power spectral density is stationary and proportional to I2t, an on-off modulation of It arises, just before oxide breakdown. This bistable noise seems to be related to localized phenomena controlled by trapping-detrapping processes within the oxide. Two possible mechanisms which could give rise to this bistable noise are discussed.
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Neri et al. (1987) studied this question.
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