Individuality of Dopants in Silicon Nano-pn Junctions

Abstract

The reduced dimensionality of present electronic devices brings along changes in the dopant distribution in the device channel, in which only a small number of dopants exist. Recent studies demonstrated that individual dopants strongly affect the electrical characteristics of nanoscale transistors. On the other hand, nanoscale pn junctions, building unit of more complex devices, have not been sufficiently studied from this viewpoint. In this work, we report several experiments that we carried out on nano-pn junctions in which the individuality of dopants is prominently observed. In electrical characteristics, we report, under various conditions, random telegraph signals (RTS) related to dopants as traps. The dynamic behavior of the depletion region of nano-pn junctions is also characterized by Kelvin probe force microscopy. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ms.20.2.6312

Keywords

• individual dopant
• pn junction
• nanoscale
• silicon-on-insulator
• random telegraph signal