Nonvolatile memory characteristics of WSi2 nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 dielectrics.

A nano-floating gate capacitor with WSi2 nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 dielectrics was fabricated. The WSi2 nanocrystals were created from ultrathin WSi2 film during rapid thermal annealing process and their average size and density were about 2.5 nm and 3.59 x 10(12) cm(-2), respectively. The flat-band voltage shift due to the carrier charging effect of WSi2 nanocrystals were measured up to 5.9 V when the gate voltage sweep in the range of +/- 9 V. The memory window was decreased from 3.7 V to 1.9 V after 1 h and remained about 3.7 V after 10(5) programming/erasing cycles. These results show that there is a possibility for the WSi2 nanocrystals to be applied to nonvolatile memory devices.