Deuterium Effect on Interface States and Silc Generation in the Che Stress Conditions: A Comparative Study

It has been recently reported that using deuterium (D) instead of hydrogen (H) for interface passivation suppresses interface state (N sub (it)) generation under Channel Hot Electron (CHE) conditions due to a slower desorption rate for D. According to the Hydrogen Release (HR) model of oxide degradation, H released from the interface can form bulk-oxide traps (Fig. 1), so that N sub (it) and SILC should be directly correlated. Recent experiments have cast doubts on the HR model by showing that samples exhibiting a clear isotope effect for CHE-induced N sub (it) show no isotope effect for Fowler-Nordheim (FN)-induced SILC. However FN and CHE stresses may not probe the same D concentration: while FN stress is spacially uniform, CHR induced N sub (it) is localized at the drain-end of the channel where the D concentration might be larger then elsewhere if the diffusion length of D from the spacers is small. In this work we eliminate the ambiguity on the location of D and make possible direct comparison of the efficiency of trap generation processes involving HR and those which involve only hot carriers by measuring the isotope effect on N sub (it) and SILC under the same CHE stress conditions.