Fabrication of Ni Nanocrystal Flash Memories Using a Polymeric Self-Assembly Approach

Fabrication of nickel nanocrystal flash memories using a polymeric approach is presented. Heat treatment of the poly (styrene-b-methyl methacrylate) block copolymer with a molecular weight of 67 000 g/mol followed by PMMA removal in an organic solvent created a porous PS film with 20-nm-diameter pores and a total pore density of ~6 times 10¹⁰ cm^-2. A trilayer pattern-transfer approach was employed in order to solve the metal lift-off issue intertwined with the low aspect ratio block copolymer patterns. As a result, a highly uniform self- assembled array of nickel nanocrystals was attained and utilized for flash memory fabrication. The memory devices demonstrated an unchanged memory window for up to 2 times 10⁵ stressing cycles.