Chapter 8 - Low dimensional materials in nanoelectronics

Abstract

The field of semiconductor electronic devices is dominated largely by low dimensional semiconductor devices. To reduce the chip area, power consumption, faster career transport, and better control on electron flow, the sizes of electronic devices have been reduced to nanometer dimension in the past few decades. However, as we continue reducing the size of materials to nanodimensions, quantum mechanical effects comes into action. As a result, nanodimensional effects need to be considered while modeling or fabricating a low dimensional device. This chapter provides a brief introduction to low dimensional semiconductors, that is, quantum wells (2D), quantum wires (1D), and quantum dots (0D). The quantum mechanical properties, such as shift in absorption wavelengths, variable band gap, change in density of states, and others properties, of nanoparticles have been discussed. The effects of size reduction on low dimensional electronic devices are discussed in brief and finally simulation and modeling approaches for such devices have been presented. The present situation of nanoelectronics and possible future avenues for further research of low dimensional devices have also been discussed.