Atomic-Scale Electronics
A new route to nanoelectronics is the use of molecules or even atoms as basic electronic building blocks. It will be very profitable to combine concepts of atomic-scale electronics with the semiconductor silicon with its highly developed technology. A challenging key to this is atomic-scale engineering of dopant atoms in silicon, ultimately striving after functional atomic circuits. Manipulation of and electrical transport through a single dopant atom is required for atomic-scale electronics based on dopant atoms, but yet non-existent. In our lab we study transport through a single dopant atom in Si at low temperature by scanning probe techniques and in nanoscale field-effect transistors (FETs) with an active region as small as 35x60x60 nm^3. Access to a dopant is facilitated by the large Bohr orbit of the localized carrier (5-10 nm). The FET and STM geometry both define a double-barrier system, the quantum well being formed by the Coulomb potential of the atom. Recent experiments in our lab confirm that the transport is dominated by resonant tunneling through the hydrogenic levels of the atom and by Coulomb-blockade effects. We study the modification of the orbital wave function (local Stark effect) of the atom with adjacent gates, the operation principle of the Si quantum computer. This combination of high-level Si-technology and low-temperature STM based transport experiments is a promising approach of atomic-scale electronics.
PI: Prof. Sven Rogge
ASE group members:
ir. Gabri Lansbergen, ir. Jan Mol, dr. Giuseppe Tettamanzi, ir. Arjan Verduijn
News: Single Dopant Control Lorentz Workshop in Leiden 29.03.-01.04.2010
Selected Publications
Lansbergen G.P., Tettamanzi G.C., Collaert N., Biesemans S., Blaauboer M., Rogge S.
Tunable Kondo effect on a single donor atom
online in Nano Letters DOI: 10.1021/nl9031132
Klein M., Mol J.A., Verduin J., Lansbergen G.P., Rogge S., Levine R.D., Remacle F
Ternary Logic Implemented on a Single Dopant Atom FET in Si
Applied Physics Letters 2010, Vol. 96, 043107
Tettamanzi G.C., Paul A., Lansbergen G.P., Verduijn J., Lee S., Collaert N.,
Biesemans S., Klimeck G., Rogge S.
Thermionic Emission as a tool to study transport in undoped nFinFETs
Electron Device Letters 2009, DOI: 10.1109/LED.2009.2036134
Lansbergen G.P., Rahman R., Wellard C.J., Rutten P.E., Caro J., Collaert N., Biesemans S., Woo I., Klimeck G., Hollenberg L.C.L., Rogge S.
Quantum confinement and symmetry transition of a single gated donor electron in silicon
Nature Physics, doi:10.1038/nphys994 (2008)
Sellier H.,Lansbergen G.P.,CaroJ.,Collaert N.,Ferain I.,Jurczak M.,Biesemans S.,Rogge S.
Sub-threshold channels at the edges of nanoscale triple-gate silicon transistors
Applied Physics Letters 90, 073502 (2007)
Sellier H.,Lansbergen G.P.,Caro J.,Collaert N.,Ferain I.,Jurczak M.,Biesemans S.,Rogge S. Transport spectroscopy of a single dopant in a gated silicon nanowire
Physical Review Letters 97, 206805 (2006)
Our work in the news:
S. Hadlington, "Getting the dope on a single atom of dopant", Chemistry World 4, 21 (2007)
W. Knight, "Atom spied interfering with electron flow", Newscientist 27 Nov (2006)
