Studies of electron screening effects on the electron mobility in silicon surface inversion layers

Theoretical calculations of the effects of electron screening of the randomly distributed oxide charges on the electron mobility in surface inversion layers at 4.2 K show that screening substantially enhances the mobility even in weakly inverted surface layer. Surface conductances are measured at 4.2 and 77 K on n-channel MOS transistors with 4 × 10¹¹ ions/cm². Threshold voltages are obtained by matching the inversion layer conductance versus gate voltage data to the theory. The observed mobility magnitude at 4.2 K is about 2000 cm²/V-s which is in excellent agreement with the theory including screening but without adjustable parameters. A conductance tail of several volts wide below the theoretical threshold voltage and a large positive threshold voltage shift are observed at low temperatures which are attributed to an areal inhomogeneous distribution of fast surface states near the silicon conduction band edge.