Localized electron trapping and trap distributions in SiO2 gate oxides

Localized trap filling and trap creation in SiO2 were investigated by injecting electrons into metal-oxide-semiconductor structures with a scanning tunneling microscope. The resulting charging causes changes in the oxide potential that were studied as a function of an applied oxide field. The charge densities and charge distributions were obtained by modeling the field dependence of the potential arising from multiple sets of sheet charges in the oxide.