We report an ab initio study of the electronic properties of surface dangling-bond (SDB) states in hydrogen-terminated Si and Ge nanowires with diameters between 1 and 2 nm, Ge/Si nanowire heterostructures, and Si and Ge (111) surfaces. We find that the charge transition levels e(+/-) of SDB states behave as a common energy reference among Si and Ge wires and Si/Ge heterostructures, at 4.3 +/- 0.1 eV below the vacuum level. Calculations of e(+/-) for isolated atoms indicate that this nearly constant value is a periodic-table atomic property.
General expressions for the electron- and hole-acoustical-phonon deformation potential Hamiltonian (H_{E-DP}) are derived for the case of Ge/Si and Si/Ge core/shell nanowire structures (NWs) with circular cross section. Based on the short-range elastic continuum approach and on derived analytical results, the spatial confined effects on the vector phonon displacement, the phonon dispersion relation and the electron- and hole-phonon scattering amplitudes are analyzed. It is shown that the acoustical vector displacement, phonon frequencies and H_{E-DP} present mixed torsional, axial, and radial components depending on the angular momentum quantum number and phonon wavector under consideration. The treatment shows that bulk group velocities of the constituent materials are renormalized due to the spatial confinement and intrinsic strain at the interface. The role of insulating shell on the phonon dispersion and electron-phonon coupling in Ge/Si and Si/Ge NWs are discussed.
We settle a general expression for the Hamiltonian of the electron-phonon deformation potential (DP) interaction in the case of non-polar core-shell cylindrical nanowires (NWs). On the basis of long range phenomenological continuum model for the optical modes and by taking into account the bulk phonon dispersions, we study the size dependence and strain-induced shift of the electron-phonon coupling strengths for Ge-Si and Si-Ge NWs. We derive analytically the DP electron-phonon Hamiltonian and report some numerical results for the frequency core modes and vibrational amplitudes. Our approach allows for the unambiguous identification of the strain and confinement effects. We explore the dependence of mode frequencies and hole-DP scattering rates on the structural parameters of these core-shell structures, which constitute a basic tool for the characterization and device applications of these novel nanosystems.
We study theoretically the low-energy hole states of Ge/Si core/shell nanowires. The low-energy valence band is quasidegenerate, formed by two doublets of different orbital angular momenta, and can be controlled via the relative shell thickness and via external fields. We find that direct (dipolar) coupling to a moderate electric field leads to an unusually large spin-orbit interaction of Rashba type on the order of meV which gives rise to pronounced helical states enabling electrical spin control. The system allows for quantum dots and spin qubits with energy levels that can vary from nearly zero to several meV, depending on the relative shell thickness.
We show a hard induced superconducting gap in a Ge-Si nanowire Josephson transistor up to in-plane magnetic fields of $250$ mT, an important step towards creating and detecting Majorana zero modes in this system. A hard induced gap requires a highly homogeneous tunneling heterointerface between the superconducting contacts and the semiconducting nanowire. This is realized by annealing devices at $180$ $^circ$C during which aluminium inter-diffuses and replaces the germanium in a section of the nanowire. Next to Al, we find a superconductor with lower critical temperature ($T_mathrm{C}=0.9$ K) and a higher critical field ($B_mathrm{C}=0.9-1.2$ T). We can therefore selectively switch either superconductor to the normal state by tuning the temperature and the magnetic field and observe that the additional superconductor induces a proximity supercurrent in the semiconducting part of the nanowire even when the Al is in the normal state. In another device where the diffusion of Al rendered the nanowire completely metallic, a superconductor with a much higher critical temperature ($T_mathrm{C}=2.9$ K) and critical field ($B_mathrm{C}=3.4$ T) is found. The small size of diffusion-induced superconductors inside nanowires may be of special interest for applications requiring high magnetic fields in arbitrary direction.
Semiconducting nanowire (NW) devices have garnered attention in self-powered electronic and optoelectronic applications. This work explores and exhibits, for the first time for visible light, a clear evidence of the zero-biased optoelectronic switching in randomly dispersed Ge and Si NW networks. The test bench, on which the NWs were dispersed for optoelectronic characterization, was fabricated using standard CMOS fabrication process, and utilized metal contacts with dissimilar work functions - Al and Ni. The randomly dispersed NWs respond to light by exhibiting substantial photocurrents and, most remarkably, demonstrate zero-bias photo-switching. The magnitude of the photocurrent is dependent on the NW material, as well as the channel length. The photocurrent in randomly dispersed GeNWs was found to be higher by orders of magnitude compared to SiNWs. In both of these material systems, when the length of the NWs was comparable to the channel length, the currents in sparse NW networks were found to be higher than that in dense NW networks, which can be explained by considering various possible arrangements of NWs in these devices.
R. Kagimura
,R. W. Nunes
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(2010)
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"Surface dangling bond states and band-lineups in hydrogen-terminated Si, Ge, and Ge/Si nanowires"
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Ricardo W. Nunes
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