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Now showing 1 - 10 of 19
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    Nanoscale Mapping of the 3D Strain Tensor in a Germanium Quantum Well Hosting a Functional Spin Qubit Device
    (Washington, DC : Soc., 2023) Corley-Wiciak, Cedric; Richter, Carsten; Zoellner, Marvin H.; Zaitsev, Ignatii; Manganelli, Costanza L.; Zatterin, Edoardo; Schülli, Tobias U.; Corley-Wiciak, Agnieszka A.; Katzer, Jens; Reichmann, Felix; Klesse, Wolfgang M.; Hendrickx, Nico W.; Sammak, Amir; Veldhorst, Menno; Scappucci, Giordano; Virgilio, Michele; Capellini, Giovanni
    A strained Ge quantum well, grown on a SiGe/Si virtual substrate and hosting two electrostatically defined hole spin qubits, is nondestructively investigated by synchrotron-based scanning X-ray diffraction microscopy to determine all its Bravais lattice parameters. This allows rendering the three-dimensional spatial dependence of the six strain tensor components with a lateral resolution of approximately 50 nm. Two different spatial scales governing the strain field fluctuations in proximity of the qubits are observed at <100 nm and >1 μm, respectively. The short-ranged fluctuations have a typical bandwidth of 2 × 10-4 and can be quantitatively linked to the compressive stressing action of the metal electrodes defining the qubits. By finite element mechanical simulations, it is estimated that this strain fluctuation is increased up to 6 × 10-4 at cryogenic temperature. The longer-ranged fluctuations are of the 10-3 order and are associated with misfit dislocations in the plastically relaxed virtual substrate. From this, energy variations of the light and heavy-hole energy maxima of the order of several 100 μeV and 1 meV are calculated for electrodes and dislocations, respectively. These insights over material-related inhomogeneities may feed into further modeling for optimization and design of large-scale quantum processors manufactured using the mainstream Si-based microelectronics technology.
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    Electron Transport across Vertical Silicon/MoS2/Graphene Heterostructures: Towards Efficient Emitter Diodes for Graphene Base Hot Electron Transistors
    (Washington, DC : ACS Publications, 2020) Belete, Melkamu; Engström, Olof; Vaziri, Sam; Lippert, Gunther; Lukosius, Mindaugas; Kataria, Satender; Lemme, Max C.
    Heterostructures comprising silicon, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), and graphene are investigated with respect to the vertical current conduction mechanism. The measured current-voltage (I-V) characteristics exhibit temperature-dependent asymmetric current, indicating thermally activated charge carrier transport. The data are compared and fitted to a current transport model that confirms thermionic emission as the responsible transport mechanism across devices. Theoretical calculations in combination with the experimental data suggest that the heterojunction barrier from Si to MoS2 is linearly temperature-dependent for T = 200-300 K with a positive temperature coefficient. The temperature dependence may be attributed to a change in band gap difference between Si and MoS2, strain at the Si/MoS2 interface, or different electron effective masses in Si and MoS2, leading to a possible entropy change stemming from variation in density of states as electrons move from Si to MoS2. The low barrier formed between Si and MoS2 and the resultant thermionic emission demonstrated here make the present devices potential candidates as the emitter diode of graphene base hot electron transistors for future high-speed electronics. Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society.
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    Multilevel HfO2-based RRAM devices for low-power neuromorphic networks
    (Melville, NY : AIP Publ., 2019) Milo, V.; Zambelli, C.; Olivo, P.
    Training and recognition with neural networks generally require high throughput, high energy efficiency, and scalable circuits to enable artificial intelligence tasks to be operated at the edge, i.e., in battery-powered portable devices and other limited-energy environments. In this scenario, scalable resistive memories have been proposed as artificial synapses thanks to their scalability, reconfigurability, and high-energy efficiency, and thanks to the ability to perform analog computation by physical laws in hardware. In this work, we study the material, device, and architecture aspects of resistive switching memory (RRAM) devices for implementing a 2-layer neural network for pattern recognition. First, various RRAM processes are screened in view of the device window, analog storage, and reliability. Then, synaptic weights are stored with 5-level precision in a 4 kbit array of RRAM devices to classify the Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology (MNIST) dataset. Finally, classification performance of a 2-layer neural network is tested before and after an annealing experiment by using experimental values of conductance stored into the array, and a simulation-based analysis of inference accuracy for arrays of increasing size is presented. Our work supports material-based development of RRAM synapses for novel neural networks with high accuracy and low-power consumption. © 2019 Author(s).
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    Advanced GeSn/SiGeSn Group IV Heterostructure Lasers
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2018) von den Driesch, Nils; Stange, Daniela; Rainko, Denis; Povstugar, Ivan; Zaumseil, Peter; Capellini, Giovanni; Schröder, Thomas; Denneulin, Thibaud; Ikonic, Zoran; Hartmann, Jean-Michel; Sigg, Hans; Mantl, Siegfried; Grützmacher, Detlev; Buca, Dan
    Growth and characterization of advanced group IV semiconductor materials with CMOS-compatible applications are demonstrated, both in photonics. The investigated GeSn/SiGeSn heterostructures combine direct bandgap GeSn active layers with indirect gap ternary SiGeSn claddings, a design proven its worth already decades ago in the III–V material system. Different types of double heterostructures and multi-quantum wells (MQWs) are epitaxially grown with varying well thicknesses and barriers. The retaining high material quality of those complex structures is probed by advanced characterization methods, such as atom probe tomography and dark-field electron holography to extract composition parameters and strain, used further for band structure calculations. Special emphasis is put on the impact of carrier confinement and quantization effects, evaluated by photoluminescence and validated by theoretical calculations. As shown, particularly MQW heterostructures promise the highest potential for efficient next generation complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible group IV lasers.
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    Current Modulation of a Heterojunction Structure by an Ultra-Thin Graphene Base Electrode
    (Basel : MDPI, 2018) Alvarado Chavarin, Carlos; Strobel, Carsten; Kitzmann, Julia; Di Bartolomeo, Antonio; Lukosius, Mindaugas; Albert, Matthias; Bartha, Johann Wolfgang; Wenger, Christian
    Graphene has been proposed as the current controlling element of vertical transport in heterojunction transistors, as it could potentially achieve high operation frequencies due to its metallic character and 2D nature. Simulations of graphene acting as a thermionic barrier between the transport of two semiconductor layers have shown cut-off frequencies larger than 1 THz. Furthermore, the use of n-doped amorphous silicon, (n)-a-Si:H, as the semiconductor for this approach could enable flexible electronics with high cutoff frequencies. In this work, we fabricated a vertical structure on a rigid substrate where graphene is embedded between two differently doped (n)-a-Si:H layers deposited by very high frequency (140 MHz) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The operation of this heterojunction structure is investigated by the two diode-like interfaces by means of temperature dependent current-voltage characterization, followed by the electrical characterization in a three-terminal configuration. We demonstrate that the vertical current between the (n)-a-Si:H layers is successfully controlled by the ultra-thin graphene base voltage. While current saturation is yet to be achieved, a transconductance of ~230 μS was obtained, demonstrating a moderate modulation of the collector-emitter current by the ultra-thin graphene base voltage. These results show promising progress towards the application of graphene base heterojunction transistors.
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    Operando diagnostic detection of interfacial oxygen ‘breathing’ of resistive random access memory by bulk-sensitive hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
    (London [u.a.] : Taylor & Francis, 2019) Niu, Gang; Calka, Pauline; Huang, Peng; Sharath, Sankaramangalam Ulhas; Petzold, Stefan; Gloskovskii, Andrei; Fröhlich, Karol; Zhao, Yudi; Kan, Jinfeng; Schubert, Markus Andreas; Bärwolf, Florian; Ren, Wei; Ye, Zuo-Guang; Perez, Eduardo; Wenger, Christian; Alff, Lambert; Schroeder, Thomas
    The HfO2-based resistive random access memory (RRAM) is one of the most promising candidates for non-volatile memory applications. The detection and examination of the dynamic behavior of oxygen ions/vacancies are crucial to deeply understand the microscopic physical nature of the resistive switching (RS) behavior. By using synchrotron radiation based, non-destructive and bulk-sensitive hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HAXPES), we demonstrate an operando diagnostic detection of the oxygen ‘breathing’ behavior at the oxide/metal interface, namely, oxygen migration between HfO2 and TiN during different RS periods. The results highlight the significance of oxide/metal interfaces in RRAM, even in filament-type devices. IMPACT STATEMENT: The oxygen ‘breathing’ behavior at the oxide/metal interface of filament-type resistive random access memory devices is operandoly detected using hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool. © 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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    Modulation Linearity Characterization of Si Ring Modulators
    (Washington, DC : OSA, 2021) Jo, Youngkwan; Mai, Christian; Lischke, Stefan; Zimmermann, Lars; Choi, Woo-Young
    Modulation linearity of Si ring modulators (RMs) is investigated through the numerical simulation based on the coupled-mode theory and experimental verification. Numerical values of the key parameters needed for the simulation are experimentally extracted. Simulation and measurement results agree well. With these, the influence of input optical wavelength and power on the Si RM linearity are characterized.
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    Selective electrodeposition of indium microstructures on silicon and their conversion into InAs and InSb semiconductors
    (New York, NY [u.a.] : Springer, 2023) Hnida-Gut, Katarzyna E.; Sousa, Marilyne; Tiwari, Preksha; Schmid, Heinz
    Abstract: The idea of benefitting from the properties of III-V semiconductors and silicon on the same substrate has been occupying the minds of scientists for several years. Although the principle of III-V integration on a silicon-based platform is simple, it is often challenging to perform due to demanding requirements for sample preparation rising from a mismatch in physical properties between those semiconductor groups (e.g. different lattice constants and thermal expansion coefficients), high cost of device-grade materials formation and their post-processing. In this paper, we demonstrate the deposition of group-III metal and III-V semiconductors in microfabricated template structures on silicon as a strategy for heterogeneous device integration on Si. The metal (indium) is selectively electrodeposited in a 2-electrode galvanostatic configuration with the working electrode (WE) located in each template, resulting in well-defined In structures of high purity. The semiconductors InAs and InSb are obtained by vapour phase diffusion of the corresponding group-V element (As, Sb) into the liquified In confined in the template. We discuss in detail the morphological and structural characterization of the synthesized In, InAs and InSb crystals as well as chemical analysis through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (TEM/STEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The proposed integration path combines the advantage of the mature top-down lithography technology to define device geometries and employs economic electrodeposition (ED) and vapour phase processes to directly integrate difficult-to-process materials on a silicon platform. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].
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    Morphological Evolution of Pit-Patterned Si(001) Substrates Driven by Surface-Energy Reduction
    (New York, NY [u.a.] : Springer, 2017) Salvalaglio, Marco; Backofen, Rainer; Voigt, Axel; Montalenti, Francesco
    Lateral ordering of heteroepitaxial islands can be conveniently achieved by suitable pit-patterning of the substrate prior to deposition. Controlling shape, orientation, and size of the pits is not trivial as, being metastable, they can significantly evolve during deposition/annealing. In this paper, we exploit a continuum model to explore the typical metastable pit morphologies that can be expected on Si(001), depending on the initial depth/shape. Evolution is predicted using a surface-diffusion model, formulated in a phase-field framework, and tackling surface-energy anisotropy. Results are shown to nicely reproduce typical metastable shapes reported in the literature. Moreover, long time scale evolutions of pit profiles with different depths are found to follow a similar kinetic pathway. The model is also exploited to treat the case of heteroepitaxial growth involving two materials characterized by different facets in their equilibrium Wulff’s shape. This can lead to significant changes in morphologies, such as a rotation of the pit during deposition as evidenced in Ge/Si experiments.
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    The thermal stability of epitaxial GeSn layers
    (Melville, NY : AIP Publ., 2018) Zaumseil, P.; Hou, Y.; Schubert, M.A.; von den Driesch, N.; Stange, D.; Rainko, D.; Virgilio, M.; Buca, D.; Capellini, G.
    We report on the direct observation of lattice relaxation and Sn segregation of GeSn/Ge/Si heterostructures under annealing. We investigated strained and partially relaxed epi-layers with Sn content in the 5 at. %-12 at. % range. In relaxed samples, we observe a further strain relaxation followed by a sudden Sn segregation, resulting in the separation of a β-Sn phase. In pseudomorphic samples, a slower segregation process progressively leads to the accumulation of Sn at the surface only. The different behaviors are explained by the role of dislocations in the Sn diffusion process. The positive impact of annealing on optical emission is also discussed.