Tunnel injection is a

field electron emission Field electron emission, also known as field-induced electron emission, field emission (FE) and electron field emission, is the emission of electrons from a material placed in an electrostatic field. The most common context is field emission from ...

effect; specifically a quantum process called Fowler–Nordheim tunneling, whereby

charge carrier In solid state physics, a charge carrier is a particle or quasiparticle that is free to move, carrying an electric charge, especially the particles that carry electric charges in electrical conductors. Examples are electrons, ions and holes. ...

s are injected to an electric conductor through a thin layer of an electric insulator. It is used to program NAND

flash memory Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

. The process used for erasing is called tunnel release. This injection is achieved by creating a large voltage difference between the gate and the body of the MOSFET. When V_GB >> 0, electrons are injected into the floating gate. When V_GB << 0, electrons are forced out of the floating gate. An alternative to tunnel injection is the spin injection.

References

Quantum mechanics Semiconductors {{quantum-stub

See also

References