Quantum Interference in Silicon 1D Quasi-Ballistic Junctionless Nanowire Field Effect Transistors

TL;DR

This study explores quantum interference and transport phenomena in silicon nanowire transistors, revealing quasi-ballistic behavior and dominant impurity scattering effects at low temperatures.

Contribution

It provides detailed measurements of mean free paths, coherence lengths, and scattering mechanisms in 8 nm silicon nanowire transistors with different doping densities.

Findings

Quantum interference observed in doped silicon nanowires.

Mean free path of 10 nm in less doped device indicates quasi-ballistic transport.

Scattering primarily due to impurities, not surface roughness.

Abstract

We investigate the low temperature transport in 8 nm diameter Si junctionless nanowire field effect transistors fabricated by top down techniques with a wrap-around gate and two different activated doping densities. First we extract the intrinsic gate capacitance of the device geometry from a device that shows Coulomb blockade at 13 mK with over 500 Coulomb peaks across a gate voltage range of 6 V indicating the formation of a single island in the entire nanowire channel. In two other devices, doped Si:P $4\times10^{19}\,\text{cm}^{-3}$ and $2\times10^{20}\,\text{cm}^{-3}$, we observe quantum interference and use the extracted gate coupling to determine the dominant energy scale and the corresponding mean-free paths. For the higher doped device the analysis yields a mean free path of $4\pm2\,\text{nm}$, which is on the order of the average dopant spacing and suggests scattering on unactivated or activated dopants. For the device with an activated dopant density of $4\times10^{19}\,\text{cm}^{-3}$ the quantum interference effects suggest a mean free path of $10\pm2\,\text{nm}$, which is comparable to the nanowire width, and thus quasi-ballistic transport. A temperature dependent analysis of Universal Conductance Fluctuations suggests a coherence length above the nanowire length for temperatures below 1.9 K and decoherence from 1D electron-electron interactions for higher temperatures. The mobility is limited by scattering on impurities rather than the expected surface roughness scattering for nanowires with diameters larger or comparable to the Fermi wavelength. Our measurements therefore provide insight into the performance limitations from dominant scattering and dephasing mechanisms in technologically relevant silicon device geometries.