Fundamentals of

Nanoelectronics

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 ECE 4140/6140
• Instructor: Avik Ghosh (ag7rq@virginia.edu)
E315 Thornton (434-243-2347)

• Class: MWF 11-11:50 (THND222)

• HWs due: F beginning of class
• Office hrs/Tutorial: Thursday evenings

• Grader: Dincer Unluer (du7x@virginia.edu) Course

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 General Information on Matlab

http://its.virginia.edu/research/matlab/

1) For students who want to install a copy on their personal

computers (need to use the UVAnywhere to start-up Matlab)
http://its.virginia.edu/research/matlab/download.html#student

2) For students that want to use the Hive (Virtual Computers with
Matlab installed that you can remote login using your personal
computer).
http://its.virginia.edu/hive/

3) Use the stack computers.

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 Course website
http://people.virginia.edu/~ag7rq/4140-6140/13/courseweb.html

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 Text/References

www.nanohub.org

VIrginia NanOComputing (VINO)

http://www.ece.virginia.edu/vino
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 Grading info

Homeworks Wednesdays 25%

1st midterm ~Feb end 20%

2nd midterm ~Mar end 20%

Finals ~May start 35%

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 Syllabus
Ch 1 (Overview) 3-4 lectures

Ch 2 (Schrodinger eqn) 4 lectures

Ch 3 (SCF) 2-3 lectures

1st midterm (Feb end)
Ch 4 (Bandstructure) 2-3 lectures

Ch 5 (Subbands) 2-3 lectures

2nd midterm (Mar end) Ch 6 (Capacitance) 2 lectures

Ch 7 (Level broadening) 3 lectures

Ch 8(Coherent Transport) 3 lectures

Ch 9 (Atom to Transistor) 2 lectures

Final (May start) Ch 10 (Coulomb Blockade) 2 lectures 9

Ch1: The need for microscopic
understanding of transport

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The Device Researcher’s bread and butter

Gate

Source Drain

Channel

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The Device Researcher’s bread and butter
Field effect transistor (FET)

Source/Drain Contacts – very conductive

Channel – limits resistance of FET
Gate – controls resistance of FET 12
 Why study transistors?
Many chemical, biological and physical processes involve
digital switching with various gates

Channel

Source Drain

Insulating substrate
M
spin memories S
D
O
R
U
A
open
CHANNEL
closed
R
I
C
N
E INSULATOR

ion channel switches VG VD

M
(Mackinnon, Nature ’03) S
I
D
O R

Molecular motors
U A
CHANNEL
R I
C INSULATOR N
E

VG VD
I
Biosensors 13
 What would we look at in an FET?

Saturation

S-D Current ID
S-D Current ID

Turn-on
Rise

Gate Voltage Source-Drain Voltage

• What’s the physics behind these curves? (HW2)

• What about current along z direction?
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The driving force behind microelectronics

• Moore’s Law: double # FETs/chip in 1.5 years

How far can we scale transistors?

New physics emerges

at these lengthscales

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Cramming more transistors onto a chip

 Shorter time for electron to move across channel

 More memory elements on a chip
 Cheaper
Smaller, Faster, Cheaper
From Ralph Cavin, NSF-Grantees’ Meeting, Dec 3 2008
Silicon transistors already at nanoscale !

Intel’s 2003 transistor 6 nm MOSFET 0.7 nm thick MOSFET

Bruce Doris, IBM Uchida, IEDM 2003

Smallness  quantum effects

Quantum confinement
Atomistic fluctuations
Leakage, Tunneling
Quantum Scattering

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A major problem: Power dissipation!

(HW1)
New physics needed – new kinds of computation 23
Heat is a Burning problem!

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How can we push
technology forward?

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 Better Design

Multiple Gates for superior field control

(Intel’s Trigate/FinFET) 26
Better Materials?

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 The material ‘zoo’ !!

2 nm

5 nm Silicon Nanowires
(Low m < 100 cm2/Vs)
Organic Molecules ?
(Reproducibility/
S
Gateability)
D
O R
U A
R I
C N
E INSULATOR Source Top Gate Drain

VG VD
Channel

I Bottom Gate

CNTs (m ~ 10,000cm2/Vs) Strained Si, SiGe

Hard to align into a circuit! (m ~ 270cm2/Vs)

< 10 nm 15 nm
Graphene

Atomistic Models

Drain
Gate Channel

Concept Source
Physics Nobel, 2010 Architecture
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 New Principles?

Metallic spintronics
already exists!

Harness electron’s spin

GMR (Nobel, 2007)
MRAMs
“Spintronics”
Multiferroics, Nanomagnetism 30
How can we model and
design today’s devices?

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 Pushing the simulation envelope..
~ 1023 atoms Bulk Solid (“macro”)
(Classical
Source Drain
Drift-Diffusion)
Channel
Bottom
Gate

80s ~ 106 atoms

Clusters (“meso”) Quantum corrections
(Semiclassical to classical concepts, usually
Boltzmann experimentally motivated
(e.g. Quantum Resistance,
Transport)
Quantum interference, etc)

Today ~ 10-100 atoms Problem: Cannot derive

Quantum concepts from
Molecules (“nano”) Classical equations !!!
(Quantum (e.g. Entanglement in quantum
Transport) Computation) 32
Bottom-Up instead of Top-Down
~ 1023 atoms Bulk Solid (“macro”)
(Classical
Source Drain
Drift-Diffusion)
Channel
Bottom
Gate

80s ~ 106 atoms

Clusters (“meso”)
(Semiclassical
Boltzmann
Classical Concepts do come
Transport)
out of Quantum Mechanics

Phase Breaking Events

Today ~ 10-100 atoms
(“Decoherence”)
Molecules (“nano”)
(Quantum
Transport) 33
 Bottom-Up instead of Top-Down
L > 1 mm
Bulk Solid (“macro”)
(Classical
Drift-Diffusion)

L ~ 100s nm
Clusters (“meso”)
(Semiclassical
Boltzmann
Classical Concepts do come
Transport)
out of Quantum Mechanics

Phase Breaking Events

L ~ 10 nm
(“Decoherence”)
Molecules (“nano”)
source drain (Quantum
Transport) 34
 The challenge: Quantum effects
=

Ohm’s Law Fourier’s Law

NO MORE! NO MORE!

RQ independent of material, geometry

R independent of material, geometry
R = h/2q2 = 12.9 kW k = p2kB2T/3h = 0.95pW/K

R < R1 + R2 !
Fano Interference in QDs
 The challenge: Atomistic effects

Nanotube Data Characterizing single molecular

Williams group, UVa traps using noise patterns (UCLA)
 Back to familiar I-Vs

Saturation
S-D Current ID

S-D Current ID
Turn-on
Rise

Gate Voltage Source-Drain Voltage

What does a device engineer look for?

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 Gate Dependence (Transfer Characteristics)
Subthreshold Swing
(mV/decade)

DIBL (mV/V)
S-D Current ID

Vd=1

Turn-on

Vd=0.5

Gate Voltage

VT small to lower power dissipation

S small to lower power dissipation (> 60 at room temperature)
ON-OFF ratio high (bit error rate in logic)
Low OFF current (static power dissipation)
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DIBL low (OFF current)
 Drain Dependence
Mobility

Output conductance
S-D Current ID

Source-Drain Voltage

Want high mobility (high ON current  Faster switching)

Want high output impedance (reliability)
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 How do we understand/model these IVs?

Saturation
S-D Current ID

S-D Current ID
Turn-on
Rise

Gate Voltage Source-Drain Voltage

HW2
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Starting point: Band-diagram

Solids have energy bands (Ch 5)

How do we locate the levels?

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Filled levels  Photoemission

hn

S + hn  S+ + e-

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Empty levels  Inverse Photoemission

hn

S + e-  S- + hn

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Level separations  Optical absorption

hn

S  S* + hn

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 Filling up the Bands with Electrons

Empty levels
E

Filled
levels

Semiconductor (Si)
Insulator (Silica) Metal (Copper)
(charge movement
(charges can’t move) (charges move) can be controlled)
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