Wear-out and breakdown of ultra-thin oxides after exposure to ionising radiation

In this work we show that electrical stresses produce HB or Soft Breakdown (SB) in ion irradiated oxides in times much shorter than in unirradiated oxides. Hence, the device life-time is substantially reduced due to the formation of localized damaged regions by ion irradiation. Even though these weak regions may drive small or negligible currents just after irradiation, they can facilitate the onset of breakdown phenomena, which can be observed for a small stress voltage applied, down to 2V, which is close to the operating voltage.