2024/03/12 by Megan Cowie, Cowie, Megan, Procopios Constantinou +7 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Random lasers and scattering media
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.07251
openalex publication_date 2024/03/12 · openalex created_date 2024/03/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We use electrostatic force microscopy to spatially resolve random telegraph noise at the Si/SiO2 interface. Our measurements demonstrate that two-state fluctuations are localized at interfacial traps, with bias-dependent rates and amplitudes. These two-level systems lead to correlated carrier number and mobility fluctuations with a range of characteristic timescales; taken together as an ensemble, they give rise to a 1/f power spectral trend. Such individual defect fluctuations at the Si/SiO2 interface impair the performance and reliability of nanoscale semiconductor devices, and will be a significant source of noise in semiconductor-based quantum sensors and computers. The fluctuations measured here are associated with a four-fold competition of rates, including slow two-state switching on the order of seconds and, in one state, fast switching on the order of nanoseconds which is associated with energy loss.