Phys Rev B 1993, 47:1397–1382.CrossRef 30. Martínez JR, Ruiz F, Vorobiev FYV, Pérez-Robles F, González-Hernández XAV-939 nmr J: Infrared spectroscopy analysis of the local atomic

structure in silica prepared by sol–gel. J Chem Phys 1998, 109:7511–7514.CrossRef 31. Adler DL, Jacobson DC, Eaglesham DJ, Marcus MA, Benton JL, Poate JM, Citrin PH: Local structure of 1.54‒μm‒luminescence Er 3+ implanted in Si. Appl Phys Lett 1992, 61:2181–2183.CrossRef Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions LJ performed the experiments, collected and analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. DL conceived the experiments, analyzed the results, and wrote the paper. LX, FW, DY, and DQ helped with the data analysis

and wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Nanocrystal (NC) floating gate memory devices have recently selleck compound attracted much attention as a strong candidate for non-volatile memories given their scalability, fast write/erase speeds, low operating voltages, and long retention times [1–4]. Numerous attempts have been made to develop non-volatile memory devices using metal NCs, such as Ni [5], Au [6], Ir [7], and Pt [8], because metal NCs have a higher density of states around the Fermi level, a wider range of available work functions, and smaller energy perturbation compared with their semiconductor counterparts [9]. Further improvement in memory performance can be achieved through the integration of metal NCs with high-κ dielectric materials, such as HfO2[10] and Al2O3[11]. The use of high-κ dielectric materials as blocking layers decreases the electric field at the top dielectric much and program/erase (P/E) voltages, which also supports the demand for small effective oxide thickness [12]. Au NCs with high work functions (5.1 eV) enable the creation of a deep potential well to trap charge carriers, such as HfO2, with high dielectric constants (20 to 25) and relatively high barrier heights (−5.7 eV). The

structure of metal/HfO2/Au NCs/SiO2/Si shows a strong potential for application in non-volatile memory devices [13, 14]. Metal/HfO2/Au NCs/SiO2/Si is fabricated in this study. The capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics show that the main storage consists of holes. However, electron trapping is seldom achieved because of the HfO2 blocking layer. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirms that the oxygen deficiency within the HfO2 layer is caused by the presence of Hf-Hf bonding. The energy band diagram shows that XMU-MP-1 molecular weight electrons trapped in the NCs tend to leak into the gate electrode through trap-assisted tunneling, which is supported by the oxygen vacancy-related levels during programming. However, Hf-Hf bonding disappears after HfO2 is annealed at 400°C for 10 min in O2 ambient. The structure of metal/HfO2 (as-annealed)/Au NCs/SiO2/Si shows that both electrons and holes are stored.