Electronic Transport in Hydrogen-Terminated Si(001) Nanomembranes

Abstract

In diverse applications employing very thin, single-crystalline semiconductor sheets, including flexible electronics and photonics, energy-storage devices, and solar cells, the impacts of surfaces and interfaces on charge transport need to be understood. The authors study the electrical conductance of very thin Si(001) sheets using a special, sensitive back-gating method, to quantify the influence of H termination on conductance for sheets of different thickness, and confirm that surface states play a dominant role in these conductance properties. Their approach is extensible to other important systems, $e.g.$ $I\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}I\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}I-V$ semiconductors and transition-metal dichalcogenides.