Berlin 2018 – scientific programme
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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik
HL 42: Transport
HL 42.5: Talk
Thursday, March 15, 2018, 16:00–16:15, EW 015
Investigation of an electrochemically operated metallic Pb single-atom transistor — •Fangqing Xie1, Falco Hüser2, Fabian Pauly3, and Thomas Schimmel1,4 — 1Institute of Applied Physics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany — 2Institut für Theoretische Festkörperphysik, KIT — 3Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, D-78464 Konstanz, Germany — 4Institute of Nanotechnology, KIT
The projected scaling limit of the gate lengths is 5 nm in silicon transistors. One focus of nanoelectronics research is to exploit the physical limits in size and energy efficiency. Here, we demonstrate a device in the form of a single-atom transistor based on a Pb quantum point contact. The atomic configuration of the point contact determines the conductance of the Pb single-atom transistor, which is confirmed with the charge transport calculations based on density functional theory for various ideal Pb contact geometries. The performance of the single-atom transistors indicates that both the signatures of atomic valence and conductance quantization play roles in electron transport and bistable reconfiguration. The bistable reconfiguration of the electrode tips is an underlying mechanism in the switching of the single-atom transistors. The operation voltage for the single-atom transistor is less than 30 mV. The dimension of the switching unit in the single-atom transistor is in the range of 1 nm, which is smaller than the projected scaling limit in silicon transistors. Therefore, the single-atom transistors may provide perspectives for electronic applications beyond silicon.