Large leakage-current reduction of ultrathin industrial SiON wafers induced by phonon-energy-coupling enhancement

Large leakage-current reduction of ultrathin SiO₂ due to enhanced phonon-energy coupling has generated extensive interest, and also doubts about its authenticity. It was suggested by researchers in the industry that both current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage (C-V) curves of the same devices fabricated using a lithographic method can prove its validation. We developed a bilayer resist lithographic method to fabricate Ni-gate metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors to validate this effect. Experimental I-V and C-V curves, together with C-V curves simulated using the Berkeley Quantum simulator, demonstrate that large leakage-current reduction (∼300×) can be reliably and reproducibly achieved on industrial SiON wafers after proper rapid thermal processing.