2009/12/06 by M. Pierre, R. Wacquez, X. Jehl +3 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advancements in Semiconductor Devices and Circuit Design #Atom (system on chip) #Atomic physics #CMOS #Chemistry #Computer science #Dopant #Doping #Field-effect transistor #Ion #Ionization #Materials science #Microelectronics #Nanoelectronics #Nanotechnology #Optoelectronics #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Semiconductor materials and devices #Silicon #Transistor #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nnano.2009.373
published as Nature Nanotechnology, vol.5, february 2010, pp. 133-137
openalex publication_date 2009/12/06 · arxiv created 2010/03/04 · arxiv updated 2014/06/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
One consequence of the continued downwards scaling of transistors is the reliance on only a few discrete atoms to dope the channel, and random fluctuations of the number of these dopants is already a major issue in the microelectonics industry. While single-dopant signatures have been observed at low temperature, studying the impact of only one dopant up to room temperature requires extremely small lengths. Here, we show that a single arsenic dopant dramatically affects the off-state behavior of an advanced microelectronics field effect transistor (FET) at room temperature. Furthermore, the ionization energy of this dopant should be profoundly modified by the close proximity of materials with a different dielectric constant than the host semiconductor. We measure a strong enhancement, from 54meV to 108meV, of the ionization energy of an arsenic atom located near the buried oxide. This enhancement is responsible for the large current below threshold at room temperature and therefore explains the large variability in these ultra-scaled transistors. The results also suggest a path to incorporating quantum functionalities into silicon CMOS devices through manipulation of single donor orbitals.