Charging effect on current conduction in aluminum nitride thin films containing Al nanocrystals

• Main Authors: Liu, Yang, Chen, Tupei, Lau, Hon Wu, Wong, Jen It, Ding, Liang, Zhang, Sam, Fung, Stevenson Hon Yuen
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Nanoelectronics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/101045; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/6411
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The presence of Al nanocrystals (nc-Al) in AlN thin films is found to enhance the current conduction of the thin film system greatly due to the formation of tunneling paths of nc-Al arrays, and the nc-Al/AlN system shows a quasi-two-dimensional transport following a power law. However, charge trapping in nc-Al reduces the current conduction because of the increase in the tunneling resistance and/or the breaking of some tunneling paths due to Coulomb blockade effect. The current conduction also evolves with a trend towards one-dimensional transport due to the breaking of some transverse tunneling paths as a result of the charge trapping.