IDENTIFICATION OF AN INTERFACE DEFECT GENERATED BY HOT-ELECTRONS IN SIO2

Hot electrons in the gate dielectric (SiO2) of field effect transistors create defects at the Si/SiO2 interface. Using electrically detected magnetic resonance, we have identified a major component of these interface defects as the well-known P(b0) center. We show that the generation rate of the P(b0) centers increases when the oxide field is sufficient to cause electron heating, thus establishing the correlation with hot-electron generated interface states. Hot-electron induced defect generation is shown to be fundamentally different from another interface degradation mechanism, electron-hole recombination near the interface, which produces interface defects but does not produce P(b0) centers.