Drain current modulation in a nanoscale field-effect-transistor channel by single dopant implantation

Abstract

We demonstrate single dopant implantation into the channel of a silicon nanoscale metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistor. This is achieved by monitoring the drain current modulation during ion irradiation. Deterministic doping is crucial for overcoming dopant number variability in present nanoscale devices and for exploiting single atom degrees of freedom. The two main ion stopping processes that induce drain current modulation are examined. We employ 500 keV He ions, in which electronic stopping is dominant, leading to discrete increases in drain current and 14 keV P dopants for which nuclear stopping is dominant leading to discrete decreases in drain current.

Single Ion Implantation into Si-Based Devices

“…[20] Other detection schemes are based on ion impact signals from secondary electrons [14,16,18] or the modulation of the drain current, I d . [13,15,17,19] For I d modulation, discrete downward steps in I d have been observed with low energy Si + implantation into a micron-scale SOI channel. [17] However, for micron-scale MOSFETs, other reports show discrete upward steps.…”

“…[10] Single ion implantation and detection has been reported by a number of groups. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] These works are compared in Table I. The table shows the energy and type of implanted ion as well as the target type and detection scheme used.…”

“…Low energy single dopant implantation into both micron-scale and nano-scale devices has been reported (indicated by the bold text in Table I). [11,15,19] Deterministic P implantation was achieved by the detection of the electron-hole (e-h) pairs created by the ion impact with an integrated PiN structure.…”

“…Low energy single dopant implantation into both micron-scale and nano-scale devices has been reported (indicated by the bold text in Table I). [11,15,19] Deterministic P implantation was achieved by the detection of the electron-hole (e-h) pairs created by the ion impact with an integrated PiN structure. [11] This scheme has resulted in a device where the timeresolved control and transfer of a single electron between two deterministically implanted P atoms was observed.…”

“…Low energy single dopant implantation into both micron-scale and nano-scale devices has been reported (indicated by the bold text in Table I). [11,15,19] Deterministic P implantation was achieved by the detection of the electron-hole (e-h) pairs created by the ion impact with an integrated PiN structure.[11] This scheme has resulted in a device where the timeresolved control and transfer of a single electron between two deterministically implanted P atoms was observed.[20] Other detection schemes are based on ion impact signals from secondary electrons [14,16,18] a These values represent the percentage of the total energy lost to ionization and nuclear recoils, respectively as calculated with SRIM. Additional energy loss occurs via phonon generation.…”