Thin tunnel oxide grown on silicon substrate pretreated by CF4 plasma

High tunneling current and large resistance against stress were the main issue of tunnel oxide for scaling down the operation voltage of EEPROMs. In this letter, thin-tunnel oxides grown on a CF/sub 4/ pretreated silicon substrate were prepared and investigated for the first time. The fabricated oxide has about three orders of tunneling current higher than that of control one; furthermore, the stress induced anomalous and low electric field leakage currents were greatly suppressed. The improvement could be contributed to F-incorporation in oxide. This type of oxide is suitable for fabricating low-voltage EEPROMs and less process complexity was added.