Radiation Tolerance and Charge Trapping Enhancement of ALD HfO/AlO Nanolaminated Dielectrics.

High- dielectric stacks are regarded as a promising information storage media in the Charge Trapping Non-Volatile Memories, which are the most viable alternative to the standard floating gate memory technology. The implementation of high-k materials in real devices requires (among the other investigations) estimation of their radiation hardness. Here we report the effect of gamma radiation (Co source, doses of 10 and 10 kGy) on dielectric properties, memory windows, leakage currents and retention characteristics of nanolaminated HfO/AlO stacks obtained by atomic layer deposition and its relationship with post-deposition annealing in oxygen and nitrogen ambient.