STTR Phase I: Fullerenic Molecule-Silica Hybrid Dielectrics for the Field-Sensitive Tunneling Barriers in Flash Memory.

This Small business Technology Transfer Phase I project is to develop a novel Fullerene-Silica hybrid material system that exhibits multiple functionalities as part of a device heterostructure. The end goal is to develop a high-performance scalable non-volatile memory using a gate stack including a silica-fullerene double tunnel junction. The findings from this research work have the potential to help overcome scaling roadblocks in a > 20B$ flash memory industry. The tunneling barrier can be further modified to create beneficial resonant tunneling effects that can boost the ratio of retention and program time. The expected result from this Phase 1 project is the extension of geometrical and voltage scaling of Flash memory by using engineered fullerene molecules in the gate stack. A quantitative model will be built for design optimization in terms of memory characteristics. This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).