Multiparameter admittance spectroscopy for metal-oxide-semiconductor systems

Journal article, 2009

Admittance spectroscopy is extended for measuring capacitance and conductance on metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structures as a function of gate voltage, frequency, and temperature. An automatic setup has been designed for collecting data along these dimensions in one measurement cycle. The theory for admittance spectroscopy has been developed by starting from basic charge carrier statistics. Using numerical integration of energy dependent parameters instead of the commonly used analytical solution, conductance dispersion curves are obtained which do not need to be adjusted by assuming lateral surface potential variations at the oxide-semiconductor interface. Also, we find that interface state densities extracted by using traditional methods are four times lower than those obtained by using our theory. Experimental data presented in three-dimensional plots are compared with theoretical calculations, revealing the possibilities and limitations of the conductance method.