Effects of the field dependent occupation of electrical-stress-generated traps on the conduction and breakdown of thin SiO2 films

The authors study the influence of the partial occupation of the NTS (neutral trapping sites) on the Fowler-Nordheim injection and on the evolution of the stress specifications for thin SiO₂ films. The results indicate that ν can be considered to be constant in constant-voltage stress and constant-current stress experiments. However, in the case of voltage ramp experiments, this condition is not satisfied and the transmission coefficient has to be numerically recalculated after small time intervals to determine the evolution of the current and of the NTS density with stress time. It is also shown that the partial compensation of the field dependences of the generation rate and the occupation function is such that the evolution of the applied field with time is pseudolinear