Saturation capacitance of thin oxide MOS structures and the effective surface density of states of silicon

The capacitance vs voltage curve of thin oxide (30–40 A) MOS structures in strong accumulation was studied. The results were interpreted in terms of equivalent surface density of state masses, which was found to be 0·2 m 0 for the silicon valence band and 0·06 m 0 for the conduction band, for both 111 and 100 surfaces. The experimental density of state masses were shown to be much lower than the bulk values. Equivalent density of states masses were calculated from a surface quantization model and in this case agreement with the experiments was obtained for the valence band only.