title: Tunneling in Systems of Coupled Dopant-Atoms in Silicon Nano-devices.
abstract: Following the rapid development of the electronics industry and technology, it is expected that future electronic devices will operate based on functional units at the level of electrically active molecules or even atoms. One pathway to observe and characterize such fundamental operation is to focus on identifying isolated or coupled dopants in nanoscale silicon transistors, the building blocks of present electronics. Here, we review some of the recent progress in the research along this direction, with a focus on devices fabricated with simple and CMOS-compatible-processing technology. We present results from a scanning probe method (Kelvin probe force microscopy) which show direct observation of dopant-induced potential modulations. We also discuss tunneling transport behavior based on the analysis of low-temperature I-V characteristics for devices representative for different regimes of doping concentration, i.e., different inter-dopant coupling strengths. This overview outlines the present status of the field, opening also directions toward practical implementation of dopant-atom devices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronics and Materials Science, Faculty of Engineering, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan. moraru.daniel@shizuoka.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Moraru
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Electronics, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan. rarup@rie.shizuoka.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Arup
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Samanta
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Electronics, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan. tyszka@rie.shizuoka.ac.jp.|Institute of Metrology and Biomedical Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Sw. A Boboli 8, Warsaw, Poland. tyszka@rie.shizuoka.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Krzysztof
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tyszka
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Kanazawa, Japan. letheanh@jaist.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Le The
authors.initials: le T
authors.lastname: Anh
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Kanazawa, Japan. mano@jaist.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Manoharan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muruganathan
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Electronics, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan. mizuno@rie.shizuoka.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mizuno
authors.affiliation: Institute of Metrology and Biomedical Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Sw. A Boboli 8, Warsaw, Poland. yabu@mchtr.pw.edu.pl.
authors.forename: Ryszard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jablonski
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Kanazawa, Japan. mizuta@jaist.ac.jp.|Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. mizuta@jaist.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mizuta
authors.affiliation: Research Institute of Electronics, Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan. tabe.michiharu@shizuoka.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Michiharu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tabe
keywords: Dopant-cluster; KPFM; SOI-FET; Single-dopant; Single-electron tunneling