Inducing n- and p-type Behaviour of Silicon Nano-Volumes by Embedding in Silicon Oxide and Nitride (talk)

Dirk Koenig*, Daniel Hiller, Noël Wilck, Birger Berghoff, Merlin Müller, Sangeeta Thakur, Giovanni Di Santo, Luca Petaccia, Joachim Mayer, Joachim Knoch, Margit Zacharias, Sean C. Smith

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to conferenceAbstractpeer-review

Abstract

Inducing n- and p-type Behaviour of Silicon Nano-Volumes by Embedding in Silicon Oxide and Nitride

Authors: D. König(ab), D. Hiller(b), N. Wilck(c), B. Berghoff(c), M. Müller(d), S. Thakur(e), G. Di Santo(e), L. Pettacia(e), J. Mayer(d), J. Knoch(c), M. Zacharias(b), S. Smith(a)
Affiliations: (a) Integrated Materials Design Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia (b) Chair of Nanotechnology, Institute of Microtechnology (IMTEK), Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany (c) Institute of Semiconductor Electronics (IHT), RWTH Aachen University, Germany (d) Ernst-Ruska Center forMicroscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons, RWTH Aachen University, Germany (e) Elettra - Sincrotrone Trieste, Basovizza, Trieste, Italy
Impurity doping of silicon (Si) nano volumes as currently used in ultra large scale integration (ULSI) devices faces serious challenges at miniaturization efforts below the 14 nm technology node. Dopant out-diffusion and inactivation by clustering are major issues for Si field effect transistors (FETs). Self-purification and a massive increase in ionization energy cause doping to fail at Si nanocrystals (NCs) which show quantum confinement. To introduce electron (n) or hole (p) type conductivity, ultrasmall Si electronic devices do not necessarily require impurity doping, but an energy shift of electronic states with respect to the vacuum energy between different Si nano-volumes such as NCs. Here, we show in theory and experiment that ultrathin layers of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and silicon nitride (Si3N4) create considerable energy offsets of electronic states in embedded Si nano-volumes. Our findings render conventional impurity doping to be obsolete for ULSI, provide new opportunities for ultra-low power electronics and open a whole new vista on the introduction of p- and n-conductivities into Si nanovolumes.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 26 May 2017
Externally publishedYes

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