 | Room temperature single-electron devices in nanocrystalline silicon
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| | T. Kamiya1), Y.T. Tan1), Z.A.K. Durrani1) and H. Ahmed1) |
| | 1) Microelectronics Research Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge |
| | Nanocrystalline silicon material, consisting of silicon grains ∼10 nm or less in size, raises the possibility of the fabrication of novel quantum and multifunctional silicon devices. We have fabricated nanometre-scale single-electron transistors operating at room temperature in 20 nm-thick nanocrystalline silicon thin films where the grain size is only 4-8 nm. The films were deposited at 300 °C using plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition, from a SiF4:H2:SiH4 gas mixture, on a 150 nm-thick silicon dioxide layer grown thermally on an n-type crystalline silicon substrate. The crystalline volume fraction, determined using Raman spectroscopy, was 70%. The films were heavily-doped in situ using PH3 and the carrier concentration was 1×1020/cm3. TEM inspection and Raman spectroscopy indicated that the crystalline silicon grains were 4-8 nm in size and encapsulated by amorphous silicon tissues. |
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