Drain current modulation in a nanoscale field-effect-transistor channel by single dopant implantation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates single dopant implantation in a nanoscale FET channel by monitoring drain current changes during ion irradiation, highlighting a method for deterministic doping at the atomic scale.

Contribution

It introduces a technique to implant single dopants into a nanoscale FET channel with real-time current monitoring, advancing atomic-scale device fabrication.

Findings

Electronic stopping with He ions causes discrete increases in drain current.

Nuclear stopping with P ions causes discrete decreases in drain current.

The method enables deterministic control of dopant placement at the single-atom level.

Abstract

We demonstrate single dopant implantation into the channel of a silicon nanoscale metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor. This is achieved by monitoring the drain current modulation during ion irradiation. Deterministic doping is crucial for overcoming dopant number variability in present nanoscale devices and for exploiting single atom degrees of freedom. The two main ion stopping processes that induce drain current modulation are examined. We employ 500~keV He ions, in which electronic stopping is dominant, leading to discrete increases in drain current and 14~keV P dopants for which nuclear stopping is dominant leading to discrete decreases in drain current.