Aluminum-Doped Gadolinium Oxides as Blocking Layer for Improved Charge Retention in Charge-Trap-Type Nonvolatile Memory Devices

Abstract

Aluminum-doped gadolinium oxides GdAlO <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x</i> are proposed as a blocking oxide layer in charge-trap-type flash memory cell devices. Greatly improved operation speed and charge retention properties have been demonstrated, compared to conventional Al <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> O <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> blocking layer. The optimization of Al percentage in GdAlO <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x</i> , as well as charge loss mechanism in the memory cell device, has also been systematically studied.