A novel method of synthesizing and controlling the size of germanium nanocrystals was developed. A tri-layer structure comprising of a thin (~5nm) SiO₂ layer grown using rapid thermal oxidation (RTO), followed by a layer of Ge+SiO₂ of varying thickness (6 - 20 nm) deposited using the radio frequency (r.f.) co-sputtering technique and a SiO₂ cap layer (50nm) deposited using r.f. sputtering, was investigated. It was verified using TEM that germanium nanocrystals of sizes ranging from 6 – 20 nm were successfully fabricated after thermal annealing of the tri-layer structure under suitable conditions. The nanocrystals were found to be well confined by the RTO SiO₂ and the cap SiO₂ under specific annealing conditions. The electrical properties of the tri-layer structure have been characterized using MOS capacitor test devices. A significant hysteresis can be observed from the C-V measurements and this suggests the charge storage capability of the nanocrystals. The proposed technique has the potential for fabricating memory devices with controllable nanocrystals sizes. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/3991 |
| Date | 01 1900 |
| Creators | Teo, L.W., Heng, C.L., Ho, V., Tay, M.S., Choi, Wee Kiong, Chim, Wai Kin, Antoniadis, Dimitri A., Fitzgerald, Eugene A. |
| Source Sets | M.I.T. Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Format | 211092 bytes, application/pdf |
| Relation | Advanced Materials for Micro- and Nano-Systems (AMMNS); |
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