Reliability study of ultrathin oxide films subject to irradiation-then-stress treatment using conductive atomic force microscopy

[[abstract]]In this work, we investigated the reliability of ultrathin silicon dioxide films subject to an irradiation-then-stress treatment using for the first time a conductive atomic force microscopy (AFM). We found that the conductive AFM gives accurate and reliable characterization of the pre- and post-treatment of oxide films. Based on the conductive AFM measured I-V curves, we concluded that the increased number of defects generated in the oxide bulk is the main mechanism contributing to the oxide degradation after the irradiation-then-stress treatment. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.[[note]]SC