Silicon Nanowire Transistor (SiNWT)

Silicon Nanowire Transistor Fabricated by AFM Nanolithography

by

Sabar D. Hutagalung, Zainovia Lockman, Lew Kam Chung, A. Makarimi Abdullah

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Silicon nanowire transistor (SiNWT) is a new promising alternative architecture to the conventional planar technology for electronic device fabrication. In this invention, SiNWT is fabricated via formation of a nanoscale silicon oxide pattern on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer using an atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanolithography. The AFM nanolithography technique is advantageous due to the imaging capability of AFM and the ability to write various patterns by controlling the probe movement over the sample surface. In AFM nanolithography, the force between the tip and sample surface is held constant while a fixed voltage bias is applied to generate the field-emitted current. To fabricate SiNWT pattern by AFM nanolithography, applied voltage between tip and sample surface, tip writing speed and environment humidity are controlled. Our SiNWT is consisted of a silicon nanowire as a channel with a set of source (S) and drain (D) pads. A lateral gate (G) pad is connected by another nanowire made to be as close as possible to the channel in the transistor structure. The fabrication process steps are including a SOI wafer preparation, patterning of a silicon nanowire transistor structure on SOI wafer by AFM nanolithography, and the etching processes of silicon layer and oxide patterns.

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