Identification of an interface defect generated by hot electrons in SiO₂

Hot electrons in the gate dielectric (SiO2) of field effect transistors create defects at the Si/SiO2 interface. Using electrically detected magnetic resonance, we have identified a major component of these interface defects as the well-known Pb0 center. We show that the generation rate of the Pb0 centers increases when the oxide field is sufficient to cause electron heating, thus establishing the correlation with hot-electron generated interface states. Hot-electron induced defect generation is shown to be fundamentally different from another interface degradation mechanism, electron-hole recombination near the interface, which produces interface defects but does not produce Pb0 centers.