Electron and spin transport in disordered nanoscale contacts
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The continued scaling of semiconductor nanotechnology below 10 nanometer dimensions requires efficient injection of electrons across interfaces between devices and contacts. In this thesis we analyze transport in metal-semiconductor and metal-insulator junctions to quantify the conductance of these structures. This enables us to assess strategies for controlling contact resistivity and spin polarization for nanoelectronics and spintronics. First, we use density functional theory and Green's functions to decompose the resistance of metal-semiconductor junctions into the loss due to tunneling and the loss due to band structure mismatch. Second, we use atomistic Monte Carlo simulations to construct probability distributions of contact resistivity in the sub-10 nm regime, where the disorder due to discreteness of dopants is consequential. Third, we assess the effectiveness of shifting the pinning of Fermi levels using interfacial layers inserted between the metal and the semiconductor. Finally, we consider the case of spin-polarized transport in tunnel junctions where the impact of disorder varies by the symmetry of the participating state. The key finding of this work are that (1) semiconductor barrier thinning with dopants is not robust to atomistic variation, (2) the addition of barrier lowering with interlayers provides the necessary contact resistivity reduction to meet targets for transistor scaling, and (3) disorder at metal-oxide interfaces does not account for the observed loss of magnetoresistance in half-metallic tunnel junctions.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Shine, Gautam |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Primary advisor | Saraswat, Krishna |
| Thesis advisor | Saraswat, Krishna |
| Thesis advisor | Reed, Evan J |
| Thesis advisor | Wong, Hon-Sum Philip, 1959- |
| Advisor | Reed, Evan J |
| Advisor | Wong, Hon-Sum Philip, 1959- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Gautam Shine. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by Gautam Shine
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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