This work investigates the formation of silicon/multiwalled carbon nanotube/silicon heterojunctions by in situ synthesizing carbon nanotubes between two heavily doped, suspended silicon microstructures that are separated 5–10μm apart using the techniques of localized heating and electric-field-assisted self-assembly. The local electric field has the strength of 0.2–1V∕μm. Tip- and root-grown carbon nanotubes are observed to form two different heterojunction morphologies at the tips as the former stop to grow and the latter continue to grow as the growth tips of carbon nanotubes reach the cold silicon. Experimental measurements of the silicon/carbon nanotube/silicon system show linear current-voltage characteristics indicating Ohmic contact behavior.

The impact of stress induced by biaxial mechanical bending on multiple-gate FET (MuGFET) performance is studied. For relatively low levels of bending-induced surface strain (∼ 0.1%), significant enhancements in the driving current can be achieved and maintained with gate-length scaling. This makes package strain a potentially attractive approach to enhancing MuGFET-based CMOS performance at low cost. For bending-induced strain, the enhancements in electron mobility and (110) hole mobility are well predicted by the piezoresistance model using the coefficients for bulk-Si, but the impact of stress on (100) hole mobility is more complex.

This paper reports a 10-nm in diameter nanoprobe electrode made of carbon nanotube (CNT) for possible electrophysiological measurements for biomedical applications. The nanoprobe is based on an individual carbon nanotube fabricated by a controlled local growth process and subsequently encapsulated with an insulating layer of Parylene-C. It is integrated with a silicon microstructure with a total length of 5μm and its tip at the distal end is locally heated to expose about 100nm-long CNT as the sensing port. We believe this nano scale CNT probe, with its high strength and Young's modulus, may act as a low-invasive intracellular electrode for measurements inside cells or neurons.

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