Tunneling and thermal emission of electrons from a distribution of shallow traps in SiO2

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Abstract
Charging of existing oxide electron traps is found to be strongly oxide electric field dependent. The transition rate of trapped electrons tunneling into the oxide conduction band increases exponentially with increasing oxide field due to barrier thinning. Electron detrapping via tunnel emission is measured at 77 K using a new isochronal electric-field-stimulated emission technique which gives the energy spectrum of the charged oxide electron traps. The experimental spectrum peaks at 0.9 eV while the measured thermal activation for electron detrapping is about 0.4 eV which are consistent with the Mott ratio of the Jahn–Teller effect for the polar SiO2, 1.9.