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Excited states and quantum confinement in room temperature few nanometre scale silicon single electron transistors

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

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  • Zahid A. K. Durrani
  • Mervyn E. Jones
  • Chen Wang
  • Dixi Liu
  • Jonathan Griffiths
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Article number125208
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>23/02/2017
<mark>Journal</mark>Nanotechnology
Issue number12
Volume28
Number of pages11
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date2/02/17
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Single nanometre scale quantum dots (QDs) have significant potential for many 'beyond CMOS' nanoelectronics and quantum computation applications. The fabrication and measurement of few nanometre silicon point-contact QD single-electron transistors are reported, which both operate at room temperature (RT) and are fabricated using standard processes. By combining thin silicon-on-insulator wafers, specific device geometry, and controlled oxidation, <10 nm nanoscale point-contact channels are defined. In this limit of the point-contact approach, ultra-small, few nanometre scale QDs are formed, enabling RT measurement of the full QD characteristics, including excited states to be made. A remarkably large QD electron addition energy ~0.8 eV, and a quantum confinement energy ~0.3 eV, are observed, implying a QD only ~1.6 nm in size. In measurements of 19 RT devices, the extracted QD radius lies within a narrow band, from 0.8 to 2.35 nm, emphasising the single-nanometre scale of the QDs. These results demonstrate that with careful control, 'beyond CMOS' RT QD transistors can be produced using current 'conventional' semiconductor device fabrication techniques.