In this paper we investigate the energy characteristics of the different trap-assisted conduction mechanisms through silicon dioxide films by means of QY measurements and simulations. Comparing experiments with simulations we show, for the first, time, that tunneling assisted by native traps is elastic, while tunneling assisted by stress induced traps (SILC) is inelastic. A key new experiment was carried out on p/sup +/ gate P-MOSFETs demonstrating that electrons tunneling through traps created by electrical stress lose energy irrespective of their initial band. It is then concluded that native and stress induced traps have different physical characteristics and that SILC electrons undergo an inelastic trap-assisted mechanism.
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