Short-channel polymer field-effect-transistor fabrication using spin-coating-induced edge template and ink-jet printing

A method to fabricate polymer field-effect transistors with submicron channel lengths is described. A thin polymer film is spin coated on a prepatterned resist with a low resolution to create a thickness contrast in the overcoated polymer layer. After plasma and solvent etching, a submicron-sized line structure, which templates the contour of the prepattern, is obtained. A further lift-off process is applied to define source-drain electrodes of transistors. With a combination of ink-jet printing, transistors with channel length down to 400 nm have been fabricated by this method. We show that drive current density increases as expected, while the on/off current ratio 106 is achieved. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.

TRANSIENT SCANNING ELECTRON BEAM ANNEALING METHODS USED TO STUDY DIFFUSION AND DEFECTS IN IMPLANTED SILICON.

Rapid thermal annealing of arsenic and boron difluoride implants, such as those used for source/drain regions in CMOS, has been carried out using a scanning electron beam annealer, as part of a study of transient diffusion effects. Three types of e-beam anneal have been performed, with peak temperatures in the range 900 -1200 degree C; the normal isothermal e-beam anneals, together with sub-second fast anneals and 'dual-pulse' anneals, in which the sample undergoes an isothermal pre-anneal followed by rapid heating to the required anneal temperature is less than 0. 5s. The diffusion occuring during these anneal cycles has been modelled using SPS-1D, an implant and diffusion modelling program developed by one of the authors. This has been modified to incorporate simulated temperature vs. time cycles for the anneals. Results are presented applying the usual equilibrium clustering model, a transient point-defect enhancement to the diffusivity proposed recently by Fair and a new dynamic clustering model for arsenic. Good agreement with SIMS measurements is obtained using the dynamic clustering model, without recourse to a transient defect model.

Hot electron field emission via individually transistor-ballasted carbon nanotube arrays.

We present electronically controlled field emission characteristics of arrays of individually ballasted carbon nanotubes synthesized by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition on silicon-on-insulator substrates. By adjusting the source-drain potential we have demonstrated the ability to controllable limit the emission current density by more than 1 order of magnitude. Dynamic control over both the turn-on electric field and field enhancement factor have been noted. A hot electron model is presented. The ballasted nanotubes are populated with hot electrons due to the highly crystalline Si channel and the high local electric field at the nanotube base. This positively shifts the Fermi level and results in a broad energy distribution about this mean, compared to the narrow spread, lower energy thermalized electron population in standard metallic emitters. The proposed vertically aligned carbon nanotube field-emitting electron source offers a viable platform for X-ray emitters and displays applications that require accurate and highly stable control over the emission characteristics.

Temperature dependent electron transport in amorphous oxide semiconductor thin film transistors

A temperature-dependent mobility model in amorphous oxide semiconductor (AOS) thin film transistors (TFTs) extracted from measurements of source-drain terminal currents at different gate voltages and temperatures is presented. At low gate voltages, trap-limited conduction prevails for a broad range of temperatures, whereas variable range hopping becomes dominant at lower temperatures. At high gate voltages and for all temperatures, percolation conduction comes into the picture. In all cases, the temperature-dependent mobility model obeys a universal power law as a function of gate voltage. © 2011 IEEE.

Analysis of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide thin-film transistor contact metal using Pilling-Bedworth theory and a variable capacitance diode model

It is widely reported that threshold voltage and on-state current of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide bottom-gate thin-film transistors are strongly influenced by the choice of source/drain contact metal. Electrical characterisation of thin-film transistors indicates that the electrical properties depend on the type and thickness of the metal(s) used. Electron transport mechanisms and possibilities for control of the defect state density are discussed. Pilling-Bedworth theory for metal oxidation explains the interaction between contact metal and amorphous indium-gallium-zinc-oxide, which leads to significant trap formation. Charge trapping within these states leads to variable capacitance diode-like behavior and is shown to explain the thin-film transistor operation. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

All-chemical vapor deposited graphene/silicon nitride TFTs

All-chemical vapor deposited silicon nitride / monolayer graphene TFTs have been fabricated. Polychromatic Raman spectroscopy shows high quality monolayer graphene channels with uniform coverage and significant interfacial doping at the source-drain contacts. Nominal mobilities of approximately 1900 cm 2V-1s-1 have been measured opening up a potentially useful platform for analogue and RFR-based applications fabricated through allchemical vapor deposition processes. © The Electrochemical Society.

Progress in the understanding of Ni silicide formation for advanced MOS structures

Metallic silicides have been used as contact materials on source/drain and gate in metal-oxide semiconductor (MOS) structure for 40 years. Since the 65 nm technology node, NiSi is the preferred material for contact in microelectronic due to low resistivity, low thermal budget, and low Si consumption. Ni(Pt)Si with 10 at.% Pt is currently employed in recent technologies since Pt allows to stabilize NiSi at high temperature. The presence of Pt and the very low thickness (<10 nm) needed for the device contacts bring new concerns for actual devices. In this work, in situ techniques [X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray reflectivity (XRR), sheet resistance, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)] were combined with atom probe tomography (APT) to study the formation mechanisms as well as the redistribution of dopants and alloy elements (Pt, Pd.) during the silicide formation. Phenomena like nucleation, lateral growth, interfacial reaction, diffusion, precipitation, and transient phase formation are investigated. The effect of alloy elements (Pt, Pd.) and dopants (As, B.) as well as stress and defects induced by the confinement in devices on the silicide formation mechanism and alloying element redistribution is examined. In particular APT has been performed for the three-dimensional (3D) analysis of MOSFET at the atomic scale. The advances in the understanding of the mechanisms of formation and redistribution are discussed. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Ni(Pt)-silicide contacts on CMOS devices: Impact of substrate nature and Pt concentration on the phase formation

Ni silicides used as contacts in source/drain and gate of advanced CMOS devices were analyzed by atom probe tomography (APT) at atomic scale. These measurements were performed on 45 nm nMOS after standard self-aligned silicide (salicide) process using Ni(5 at.% Pt) alloy. After the first annealing (RTA1), δ-Ni2Si was the only phase formed on gate and source/drain while, after the second annealing (RTA2), two different Ni silicides have been formed: NiSi on the gate and δ-Ni2Si on the source and drain. This difference between source/drain and gate regions in nMOS devices has been related to the Si substrate nature (poly or mono-crystalline) and to the size of the contact. In fact, NiSi seems to have difficulties to nucleate in the narrow source/drain contact on mono-crystalline Si. The results have been compared to analysis performed on 28 nm nMOS where the Pt concentration is higher (10 at.% Pt). In this case, θ-Ni2Si is the first phase to form after RTA1 and NiSi is then formed at the same time on source (or drain) and gate after RTA2. The absence of the formation of NiSi from δ-Ni 2Si/Si(1 0 0) interface compared to θ-Ni2Si/Si(1 0 0) interface could be related to the difference of the interface energies. The redistributions of As and Pt in different silicides and interfaces were measured and discussed. In particular, it has been evidenced that Pt redistributions obtained on both 45 and 28 nm MOS transistors correspond to respective Pt distributions measured on blanket wafers. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Multiple valley couplings in nanometer Si metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors

We investigate the couplings between different energy band valleys in a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) device using self-consistent calculations of million-atom Schrodinger-Poisson equations. Atomistic empirical pseudopotentials are used to describe the device Hamiltonian and the underlying bulk band structure. The MOSFET device is under nonequilibrium condition with a source-drain bias up to 2 V and a gate potential close to the threshold potential. We find that all the intervalley couplings are small, with the coupling constants less than 3 meV. As a result, the system eigenstates derived from different bulk valleys can be calculated separately. This will significantly reduce the simulation time because the diagonalization of the Hamiltonian matrix scales as the third power of the total number of basis functions. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Influence of transverse interdot coupling on transport properties of an Aharonov-Bohm structure composed by two dots and two reservoirs

We derive the modified rate equations for an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) ring with two transversely coupled quantum dots (QD's) embedded in two arms in the presence of a magnetic field. We find that the interdot coupling between the two QD's can cause a temporal oscillation in electron occupation at the initial stage of the quantum dynamics, while the source-drain current decays monotonically to a stationary value. On the other hand, the interdot coupling equivalently divides the AB ring into two coupled subrings. That also destroys the normal AB oscillations with a period of 2pi, and generates new and complex periodic oscillations with their periods varying in a linear manner as the ratio between two magnetic fluxes (each penetrates one AB subring) increases. Furthermore, the interference between two subrings is also evident from the observation of the perturbed fundamental AB oscillation.

Detection of Terahertz Photon by GaAs-Based Single Electron Transistor at Low Temperatures

A reproducible terahertz (THz) photocurrent was observed at low temperatures in a Schottky wrap gate single electron transistor with a normal-incident of a CH_3OH gas laser with the frequency 2. 54THz.The change of source-drain current induced by THz photons shows that a satellite peak is generated beside the resonance peak. THz photon energy can be characterized by the difference of gate voltage positions between the resonance peak and satellite peak. This indicates that the satellite peak exactly results from the THz photon-assisted tunneling. Both experimental results and theoretical analysis show that a narrow spacing of double barriers is more effective for the enhancement of THz response.

Fano effect on shot noise through a Kondo-correlated quantum dot

Transport in a semiopen Kondo- correlated quantum dot is mediated through more than one quantum state. Using the Keldysh technique and the equation of motion method, we study the shot noise S for a wide range of source- drain voltages V-sd within a model incorporating the additional states as a background continuum, demonstrating the importance of the Fano interference. In the absence of the interference, the noise is revealed to be a probe of the second moment of the local density of states, and our theory reproduces the well- known peak structure around the Kondo temperature in the S-V-sd curve. More significantly, it is found that taking account of the background transmission, the voltage dependence of the noise exhibits rich peak- dip line shapes, indicating the presence of the Fano effect. We further demonstrate that due to its two- particle nature, the noise is more sensitive to the quantum interference effect than the simple current.

Organic thin-film transistors in sandwich configuration

Organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) having source/drain electrodes sandwiched between copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) and cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc) layers, CuPc/CoPc SC OTFTs, are investigated. Comparing their properties with that of CuPc-based top-contact OTFT, field-effect mobility increases from 0.04 to 0.11 cm(2)/Vs, threshold voltage shifts from -13.8 to -8.9 V, and the current on/off ratio maintains at a level of 10(5). A top-contact OTFT with a layer of CuPc and a layer of CoPc (10%)-CuPc mixture reveals that the combination of CuPc and CoPc enhances charge injection from the source electrode into the active layer and increases the off-state current. The sandwich configuration increases the field-effect mobility, reduce the threshold voltage, and improve the on/off ratio at the same time. Our results indicate that using a double-layer of active organic materials in sandwich configuration is an effective way to improve OTFT performance.

Translocation of assimilates in Undaria and its cultivation in China

Undaria cultivation on a commercial scale began in China only in the last decade. Today, Undaria pinnatifida is the main species under cultivation concentrated in two provinces, Liaoning and Shandong. The annual production in the early nineties was 8000-13 000 tons dry weight, which is two or three times the pre-1980 figures. The raft cultivation method maintaining the alga at the desired depths generally ensures the light saturated rate of photosynthesis on clear days, and enhances production. Under the cultivated condition, the calculated annual primary productivity of this alga is 160 g C m(-2) y(-1). Translocation of C-14-labelled photoassimilates in rapidly growing sporophyte of Undaria pinnatifida was studied in the open sea. Samples from different parts of the blade with counterparts exposed to tracer ((NaHCO3)-C-14) showed that the translocation that occurred mainly from the tip of the blade to the growing region had obvious source-sink relationship. It took 20 minutes to translocate the labelled photoassimilates from the epidermis, via cortex, to the medulla of the midrib, where rates of translocation averaging 42-48 cm h(-1) were observed in the open sea. Production experiments of tip-cutting of the blades showed an increased production of 9%.

Modification of nitrogen remobilisation, grain fill and leaf senescence in maize (Zea mays L.) by transposon insertional mutagenensis in a protease gene

Donnison, I. S., Gay, A. P., Thomas, Howard, Edwards, K. J., Edwards, D., James, C. L., Thomas, A. M., Ougham, H. J. (2007). Modification of nitrogen remobilization, grain fill and leaf senescence in maize (Zea mays) by transposon insertional mutagenensis in a protease gene. New Phytologist, 173 (3), 481-494. Sponsorship: BBSRC RAE2008