No Arabic abstract
We compare the characteristics of phase-pure MOCVD grown ZB and WZ InAs nanowire transistors in several atmospheres: air, dry pure N$_2$ and O$_2$, and N$_2$ bubbled through liquid H$_2$O and alcohols to identify whether phase-related structural/surface differences affect their response. Both WZ and ZB give poor gate characteristics in dry state. Adsorption of polar species reduces off-current by 2-3 orders of magnitude, increases on-off ratio and significantly reduces sub-threshold slope. The key difference is the greater sensitivity of WZ to low adsorbate level. We attribute this to facet structure and its influence on the separation between conduction electrons and surface adsorption sites. We highlight the important role adsorbed species play in nanowire device characterisation. WZ is commonly thought superior to ZB in InAs nanowire transistors. We show this is an artefact of the moderate humidity found in ambient laboratory conditions: WZ and ZB perform equally poorly in the dry gas limit yet equally well in the wet gas limit. We also highlight the vital role density-lowering disorder has in improving gate characteristics, be it stacking faults in mixed-phase WZ or surface adsorbates in pure-phase nanowires.
Semiconducting MoTe2 is one of the few two-dimensional (2D) materials with a moderate band gap, similar to silicon. However, this material remains under-explored for 2D electronics due to ambient instability and predominantly p-type Fermi level pinning at contacts. Here, we demonstrate unipolar n-type MoTe2 transistors with the highest performance to date, including high saturation current (>400 ${mu}A/{mu}m$ at 80 K and >200 ${mu}A/{mu}m$ at 300 K) and relatively low contact resistance (1.2 to 2 $k{Omega}cdot{mu}m$ from 80 to 300 K), achieved with Ag contacts and AlOx encapsulation. We also investigate other contact metals, extracting their Schottky barrier heights using an analytic subthreshold model. High-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveals that interfacial metal-Te compounds dominate the contact resistance. Among the metals studied, Sc has the lowest work function but is the most reactive, which we counter by inserting monolayer h-BN between MoTe2 and Sc. These metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) contacts partly de-pin the metal Fermi level and lead to the smallest Schottky barrier for electron injection. Overall, this work improves our understanding of n-type contacts to 2D materials, an important advance for low-power electronics.
We introduce a fabrication method for gate-all-around nanowire field-effect transistors. Single nanowires were aligned perpendicular to underlying bottom gates using a resist-trench alignment technique. Top gates were then defined aligned to the bottom gates to form gate-all-around structures. This approach overcomes significant limitations in minimal obtainable gate length and gate-length control in previous horizontal wrap-gated nanowire transistors that arise because the gate is defined by wet etching. In the method presented here gate-length control is limited by the resolution of the electron-beam-lithography process. We demonstrate the versatility of our approach by fabricating a device with an independent bottom gate, top gate, and gate-all-around structure as well as a device with three independent gate-all-around structures with 300 nm, 200 nm, and 150 nm gate length. Our method enables us to achieve sub-threshold swings as low as 38 mV/dec at 77 K for a 150 nm gate length.
Realizing single photon sources emitting in the telecom band on silicon substrates is essential to reach complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible devices that secure communications over long distances. In this work, we propose the monolithic growth of needlelike tapered InAs/InP quantum dot-nanowires (QD-NWs) on silicon substrates with a small taper angle and a nanowire diameter tailored to support a single mode waveguide. Such a NW geometry is obtained by a controlled balance over axial and radial growths during the gold-catalyzed growth of the NWs by molecular beam epitaxy. This allows us to investigate the impact of the taper angle on the emission properties of a single InAs/InP QD-NW. At room temperature, a Gaussian far-field emission profile in the telecom O-band with a 30{deg} beam divergence angle is demonstrated from a single InAs QD embedded in a 2{deg} tapered InP NW. Moreover, single photon emission is observed at cryogenic temperature for an off-resonant excitation and the best result, $g^2(0) = 0.05$, is obtained for a 7{deg} tapered NW. This all-encompassing study paves the way for the monolithic growth on silicon of an efficient single photon source in the telecom band based on InAs/InP QD-NWs.
We report the development of nanowire field-effect transistors featuring an ultra-thin parylene film as a polymer gate insulator. The room temperature, gas-phase deposition of parylene is an attractive alternative to oxide insulators prepared at high temperatures using atomic layer deposition. We discuss our custom-built parylene deposition system, which is designed for reliable and controlled deposition of <100 nm thick parylene films on III-V nanowires standing vertically on a growth substrate or horizontally on a device substrate. The former case gives conformally-coated nanowires, which we used to produce functional $Omega$-gate and gate-all-around structures. These give sub-threshold swings as low as 140 mV/dec and on/off ratios exceeding $10^3$ at room temperature. For the gate-all-around structure, we developed a novel fabrication strategy that overcomes some of the limitations with previous lateral wrap-gate nanowire transistors. Finally, we show that parylene can be deposited over chemically-treated nanowire surfaces; a feature generally not possible with oxides produced by atomic layer deposition due to the surface `self-cleaning effect. Our results highlight the potential for parylene as an alternative ultra-thin insulator in nanoscale electronic devices more broadly, with potential applications extending into nanobioelectronics due to parylenes well-established biocompatible properties.
Electrical characterization of few-layer MoS2 based field effect transistors with Ti/Au electrodes is performed in the vacuum chamber of a scanning electron microscope in order to study the effects of electron beam irradiation on the transport properties of the device. A negative threshold voltage shift and a carrier mobility enhancement is observed and explained in terms of positive charges trapped in the SiO2 gate oxide, during the irradiation. The transistor channel current is increased up to three order of magnitudes after the exposure to an irradiation dose of 100e-/nm2. Finally, a complete field emission characterization of the MoS2 flake, achieving emission stability for several hours and a minimum turn-on field of about 20 V/um with a field enhancement factor of about 500 at anode-cathode distance of 1.5um, demonstrates the suitability of few-layer MoS2 as two-dimensional emitting surface for cold-cathode applications.