Hot electrons in silicon oxide

One particular use of amorphous silicon oxide (SiO2), a material crucial for silicon device technology and design, is as a flash memory tunnel dielectric. The breakdown field of SiO2 exceeds 10(7) V cm(-1). Strong electric fields in SiO2 give rise to phenomena that do not occur in crystalline semiconductors. In relatively low electric fields (10(4)-10(6) V cm(-1)) the electron distribution function is determined by the scattering of electrons by longitudinal optical phonons. In high fields (in excess of 10(6) V cm(-1)) the distribution function is determined by electron-acoustic phonon scattering.