The nickel-nanocrystals (Ni-NCs)-embedded silicon nitride acting as a trapping layer has been successfully demonstrated to manipulate the charging and discharging of electrons in a thin film transistor (TFT) for nonvolatile memory (NVM) applications. Regarding device performance, with and without Ni-NCs in the stack and under a programming/erasing condition of +/-18 V for 1 s, a better threshold voltage shift of 3.2 V can be reached compared to a shift of 2.0 V for a stack without Ni-NCs. The shift is an index representing the value required to differentiate "0" or "1" states during operation. In this case, the diameter range and number density of Ni-NCs are 5-13 nm and 5.3 x 10(11) cm(-2), respectively. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.