Protein-Assembled Nanocrystal-Based Vertical Flash Memory Devices with Al2O3 Integration

This work presents vertical flash memory devices with protein-assembled PbSe nanocrystals as a floating gate and Al2O3 as a control oxide. The advantage of a vertical structure is that it improves cell density. Protein assembly improves uniformity of nanocrystals, which reduces threshold voltage variation among devices. The introduction of Al2O3 as a control oxide provided lower voltage/faster operation and hence less power consumption compared with the devices fabricated with SiO2. The integration of Al2O3 appeared to be compatible with the protein assembly approach. In conclusion, Al2O3 has the potential to become the high-k control oxide due to its relatively high electron/hole barrier heights, and high permittivity.