title: Controllable electrical and physical breakdown of poly-crystalline silicon nanowires by thermally assisted electromigration.
abstract: The importance of poly-crystalline silicon (poly-Si) in semiconductor manufacturing is rapidly increasing due to its highly controllable conductivity and excellent, uniform deposition quality. With the continuing miniaturization of electronic components, low dimensional structures such as 1-dimensional nanowires (NWs) have attracted a great deal of attention. But such components have a much higher current density than 2- or 3-dimensional films, and high current can degrade device lifetime and lead to breakdown problems. Here, we report on the electrical and thermal characteristics of poly-Si NWs, which can also be used to control electrical and physical breakdown under high current density. This work reports a controllable catastrophic change of poly-Si NWs by thermally-assisted electromigration and underlying mechanisms. It also reports the direct and real time observation of these catastrophic changes of poly-Si nanowires for the first time, using scanning electron microscopy.
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jun-Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Il
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Myeong-Lok
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Seol
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.|Semiconductor R&D Center, Samsung Electronics, San #16 Banwol-Dong, Hwasung-City, Gyeonggi-Do 445-701, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Chang-Hoon
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Jeon
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Gwang-Jae
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Jeon
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanotechnology, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
authors.forename: Jin-Woo
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Choong-Ki
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Sang-Jae
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hee Chul
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Yang-Kyu
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Choi