Fabrication and Characterization of Nano-Channel Field Effect Transistors Patterned by AFM Anodic Oxidation

Abstract

We report a top-down approach based on atomic force microscope (AFM) local anodic oxidation (LAO) for the fabrications of the nanowire and nano-ribbon field effect transistors (FETs). In order to investigate the transport characteristics of nano-channel, we fabricated simple FET structures with channel width W approximately 300 nm (nanowire) and 10 microm (nano-ribbon) on 20 nm-thick silicon-on-insulator (SOL) wafers. In order to investigate the transport behavior in the device with different channel geometries, we have performed detailed two-dimensional simulations of nanowire and reference nano-ribbon FETs with a fixed channel length L and thickness t but varying channel width W from 300 nm to 10 microm. By evaluating the charge distributions, we have shown that the increase of 'on state' conduction current in SiNW channel is a dominant factor, which consequently result in the improved on/off current ratio of the nanowire FET.