Ren, YonglingWeber, Klaus J.Nursam, Natalita M.2015-09-172015-09-170003-6951http://hdl.handle.net/1885/15518The stability of negative charge in nitrogen-rich silicon nitride films deposited by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is investigated by analyzing the influence of storage temperature, postdeposition thermal annealing, and the presence of a tunnel oxide. The results are compared to a charge decay model. Comparison of experimental and modeled results indicates that (i) the tunnel oxide is almost entirely responsible for charge retention in samples with an oxide-nitride-oxide (ONO) structure, with the trap properties playing an insignificant role; (ii) thermionic emission over the tunnel oxide barrier is the limiting charge decay mechanism; and (iii) thermal annealing of the films at 800 °C leads to an increase in the oxide-nitride barrier height by ∼0.22 eV , which results in a significant increase in the charge stability. Annealed ONO samples are predicted to maintain a negative charge density of >5×10¹² cm¯² for well in excess of 100 years at a storage temperature of 100 °C .Financial support from Australian Research Council Grant No. LP0883613 is gratefully acknowledged.http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0003-6951..."Publishers version/PDF may be used on author's personal website, institutional website or institutional repository" from SHERPA/RoMEO site (as at 17/09/15)Copyright 2011 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Applied Physics Letters and may be found at https://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3571291.Keywords: Barrier heights; Charge decay; Charge decay mechanism; Charge retention; Charge stability; Negative charge; Oxide nitride oxides; Postdeposition thermal annealing; Silicon Nitride Film; Storage temperatures; Thermal-annealing; Trap properties; Tunnel oxid2011-03-2510.1063/1.35712912016-02-24