Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 42, February 2003, pp.

S681S684

Characterization of Interface Traps in MOS Devices Using Photonic

Illumination Method
Young-Wook Lee, Byungyou Hong and Yonghan Roh
School of Information and Communication Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746

Viktor A. Vikulov
Radiophysics Department, Kiev Shevchenko University, 64 Volodimirskaya, 01033 Kiev, Ukraine
A new model is proposed for obtaining the density of interface traps (Dit ) located at the Si-SiO2
interface in Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) devices. The new model utilizes both the high
frequency capacitance-voltage (HF C-V) measurement and the corrected photo HF C-V method
suggested in this work for calculating the Dit spectrum as a function of Si forbidden energy band
gap. The degree of distortion of the surface band bending caused by photonic illumination was
obtained from the current-voltage (I-V) data measured with and without photonic illumination.
Results exhibit the identical distribution of Dit within the semiconductor band gap, consistent with
the one obtained by the conventional quasi-static C-V method. The newly proposed technique
can be useful for the determination of Dit distribution in MOS devices for which the conventional
quasi-static C-V technique could not be applied due to the leakage current.
PACS numbers: 73.50.Pz
Keywords: C-V, Photo I-V, Interface trap density, Dit

I. INTRODUCTION
Interface traps at the Si-SiO2 interface in MOS devices have been extensively investigated for improving
device reliability. For example, mobility degradation and
threshold voltage shifts are known to be caused by electron trapping at the Si-SiO2 interface. Consequently,
understanding and control of these defects have been at
the core of research among semiconductor interface specialists, and represent a critical step in the fabrication of
integrated circuits.
Several measurement techniques, including highfrequency (HF) C-V, quasi-static (QS) C-V and charge
pumping, have been used to characterize the Si-SiO2 interface in the form of Dit in MOS devices [13]. A comparison of the HF and QS C-V data, for example, can be
easily converted to the Dit spectrum in MOS capacitor.
In addition, the charge pumping technique employed in
metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) is used for calculating the mid-bandgap interface
trap density. Both techniques are easy to implement,
and the data obtained are believed to be reliable. However, it has been also known that the direct application of
these techniques to the MOS devices with thin gate oxide, as well as high-k gate dielectric, is extremely difficult
since the leakage currents through thin SiO2 prohibit the
correct calculation of interface properties. For instance,
E-mail:

yhroh@skku.ac.kr

the properties of the Si-SiO2 interface could not be clarified by the conventional HF/QS C-V technique since the
leakage current will be added to the displacement current which is essential to derive the density of interface
traps.
Recently, several groups [46] proposed measurement
techniques in which optical illumination was employed
for characterizing the Si-SiO2 interface. For example,
Kim et al. [6] was able to calculate the Dit value by analyzing the data of photoresponsive C-V and I-V. However, the full spectrum of Dit as a function of Si forbidden energy bandgap has not been reported. In this work,
we investigated the feasibility of a photonic illumination
technique to measure the density of interface traps as a
function of forbidden energy bandgap of Si for which the
conventional QS C-V technique could not be applied due
to the leakage current.

II. EXPERIMENTAL
The samples were fabricated on 4-inch p-type (100) Si
wafers with the doping concentration of 1 1015 cm3 .
After the standard RCA cleaning, a native oxide layer
was removed by immersing the wafers to the buffered HF
solution for 10 seconds. The oxide layer was thermally
grown to the thickness of 3-13 nm using a rapid thermal
processor (RTP). The semi-transparent aluminum electrodes were deposited using a thermal evaporator, and

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 42, February 2003

the area of gate electrode was 104 cm2 .

The halogen lamp (150 W SENA Superbeam 150LE)
with a visible interference filter (3.1 eV) was used as a
light source during the HF C-V (i.e., photo HF C-V) and
I-V (i.e., photo I-V) measurements. The HF C-V curves
with/without photonic illumination were measured using
a HP4275A LCR meter at the frequency of 1 MHz. To
correct the series resistance effects on the HF C-V data in
the accumulation region, the compensated value of oxide
capacitance was calculated using Eq. (1) [5].
Cmeas =

C
(1 + 2f CRs )

(1)

where f and Rs are applied ac frequency and series resistance, respectively. The current-voltage properties
with/without photonic illumination was measured using a HP4145B semiconductor parameter analyzer. The
quasi-static C-V curves were measured using a HP4140B
pA-meter. All measurements were performed at room
temperature.

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSIONS

Figure 1 shows the C-V data measured using the HF
(open square), QS (open circle) and photo HF C-V (solid
circle) techniques. As shown in Fig. 1, photonic illumination increases the capacitance values measured between the depletion and inversion regions as compared to
those obtained from the HF C-V measurement. This observation is due to the increase of semiconductors capacitance; that is, the additional photogenerated minority
carriers (i.e., electrons in this case) follow the ac signal
during the voltage sweeping. We note that photo HF CV data in Fig. 1 is due to the photogenerated electrons
responding to the applied 1 MHz ac signal instead of the
displacement current measured from the normal QS C-V
technique without photonic illumination.
The values of surface potential (s ) were calculated
from the data of photo HF C-V and QS C-V in Fig. 1
using the models of Ahaitouf et al. [7] and Berlung [1,2],
respectively, and the results are shown in Fig. 2. In the
model proposed by Ahaitouf et al. [7], a semiconductor
surface charge density (Qsc ) under photonic illumination
is obtained by

2kT 0 s
q
pno
Qs = sign(s )
F(
s ,
)
(2)
qLD
kT
nn0

Fig. 1. Capacitance versus voltage curves measured using

1 MHz HF C-V (open square), QS C-V (open circle) and 1
MHz HF C-V with photonic illumination (solid circle). A
comparison of the QS C-V and photo HF C-V data indicates
discrepancy at the depletion and inversion regions.

where =q/kT, A=(es + s 1) and Ef is the

separation of the majority and minority carrier quasiFermi levels due to the illumination. For a fixed applied
voltage the surface potential value can be estimated from
Eq. (2) using the Newton-Raphson numerical method.
As is clear in Fig. 2, the surface potentials rapidly
increase in the low voltage region, while they tend to
saturate at the higher applied voltages. In addition, the
s extracted from photo HF C-V data is lower than that
obtained from QS C-V curve in Fig. 1. Therefore it is
believed that the s extracted from photo HF C-V data
was modified due to photonic illumination, causing the
discrepancy between photo HF C-V and QS C-V data in
Fig. 1. Based on the results shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the
interface trap density cannot be directly determined by
comparing photo HF C-V and HF C-V data.
The degree of the modified s due to photonic illumination in Figs. 1 and 2 can be calculated using the
Schottky model with a thin interfacial oxide layer [2,8
10]. In this structure, the I-V characteristics without

where 0 and s are the free space and semiconductor

permittivity, respectively, LD is the Debye length, and
s is the surface potential. pno and nn0 are the minor and major carrier concentrations, respectively. The
function F in Eq. 2 is given by
F(

q
pno
pn0 Ef 1
s ,
) = [es s + 1 +
e kT A] 2 (3)
kT
nn0
nn0

Fig. 2. Calculated surface potentials of the QS C-V and

photo HF C-V data shown in Fig. 1.

Characterization of Interface Traps in MOS Devices Using Photonic Young-Wook Lee et al.

Fig. 3. Current-voltage characteristics measured with

(open circle) and without (solid circle) photonic illumination
on the same sample employed in Fig. 1.

photonic illumination is given by

qVox
qs
) exp(
)]
(4)
kT
kT
where Vox is the voltage drop on the thin oxide layer,
and Is is the saturation current. We note in Eq. (4) that
the forward and reverse current are determined by s
and Vox , respectively. For the specific case of Vox =0,
the Eq. 4 becomes the conventional single exponential
law for Schottky-like contact without the interface layer.
Since the surface potential of MOS capacitor in the inversion region under the photonic illumination decreases
with the increase of optical power density [11, 12], the
voltage drop (Vg ) on MOS capacitor can be rewritten
by
I = Is [exp(

Vg = (s V ) + Vox

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Fig. 4. Surface potentials calculated using the Eqs. 8, 9.

where IF is the experimental current measured during

the forward voltage sweep.
The difference between the values extracted from Eqs.
8 and 9 gives the degree of the modified s due to photonic illumination, and the results are shown in Figs. 3,
4. Figure 3 represents IF measured with (open circle)
and without (solid circle) photonic illumination. The
value of s in Fig. 4 was calculated for a steady-state
condition using Eqs. (8), (9) and I-V data shown in Fig.
3. Therefore the degree of the modified s due to photonic illumination (V ) is determined by measuring the
difference of s values at the given voltages.
Figure 5 shows the values of s calculated from the
data of QS C-V (solid square), photo HF C-V (open
square), I-V (solid circle) and photo I-V (open circle)
experiments. It is clear in Fig. 5 that the value of V

(5)

where V is the reduction of a band bending due to photonic illumination. Using Eqs. (4) and (5), the currentvoltage characteristic for the forward bias voltage is given
by
IF = Is exp(

qs
)
kT

(6)

and
q(s V )
)
(7)
kT
for without and with photonic illumination, respectively.
Therefore s and (s - V ) can be obtained from the
derivation of Eqs. (6) and (7), respectively:
Z
kT Vg dIF 1
s =
dv
(8)
q Vg0 dVg IF
IF = Is exp(

and
s V =

kT
q

Vg

Vg0

dIF 1
dv
dVg IF

(9)

Fig. 5. A comparison of surface potentials measured using

QS C-V (solid square), photo HF C-V (open square), I-V
(solid circle) and Photo I-V (open circle). The data shown
in this figure indicate that V(Vg ) obtained from QS CV/photo HF C-V data is comparable to that measured from
the I-V/photo I-V data.

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Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 42, February 2003

IV. CONCLUSIONS
We suggested the new experimental method for the extraction of the Dit spectrum based on the combination of
photo HF C-V and current-voltage measurements. Results exhibit the identical behavior of Dit distribution
within the Si forbidden energy bandgap as compared to
that obtained by the conventional HF/QS C-V method.
Since the new technique is insensitive to the formation of
direct tunneling current, it can be useful for determining the interface traps density at the Si-SiO2 interface
in MOS devices for which the conventional HF/QS C-V
technique could not be applied due to the leakage current.

Fig. 6. The density of interface trap (Dit ) measured by

the new technique (open square) is consistent with the data
obtained by the conventional QS/HF C-V technique (open
circle).

obtained from photo I-V/I-V is same as that calculated

from QS C-V/photo HF C-V. Therefore we suggest that
the low frequency (or QS) relationship of s versus Vg
can be derived using photo HF C-V by simply compensating V at each applied gate voltage.
Based on the experimentally obtained dependence of
s = f (Vg ), the Dit value at the SiO2 -Si interface can be
evaluated using the expression for interface trap capacitance (Cit ) and the relationship between Cit and Dit :
Cit = Cox [(

dVg
) 1] Cs (s )
ds

(10)

and
Cit = qADit (s )

(11)

where Cs is the semiconductor capacitance obtained

from the corrected high-frequency capacitance.
The full spectrum of Dit can be evaluated by adding
the experimental dependence of V versus applied voltage Vg . Figure 6 shows the Dit values obtained both
from HF/QS C-V data using the conventional technique
and from HF/corrected photo HF C-V data using the
Eqs. (10) and (11). It is shown in this figure that the
Dit values of both measurement techniques are comparable within experimental error. This observation suggests
that the extraction of Dit value from the HF/corrected
photo HF C-V data is useful technique to be applied
where the conventional HF/QS C-V method cannot be
employed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by grant No. R05-2000-00000263-0 from the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.

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