High frequency top-down junction-less silicon nanowire resonators

Abstract

We report here the first realization of top-down silicon nanowires (SiNW) transduced by both junction-less field-effect transistor (FET) and the piezoresistive (PZR) effect. The suspended SiNWs are among the smallest top-down SiNWs reported to date, featuring widths down to ∼20 nm. This has been achieved thanks to a 200 mm-wafer-scale, VLSI process fully amenable to monolithic CMOS co-integration. Thanks to the very small dimensions, the conductance of the silicon nanowire can be controlled by a nearby electrostatic gate. Both the junction-less FET and the previously demonstrated PZR transduction have been performed with the same SiNW. These self-transducing schemes have shown similar signal-to-background ratios, and the PZR transduction has exhibited a relatively higher output signal. Allan deviation (σA) of the same SiNW has been measured with both schemes, and we obtain σA ∼ 20 ppm for the FET detection and σA ∼ 3 ppm for the PZR detection at room temperature and low pressure. Orders of magnitude improvements are expected from tighter electrostatic control via changes in geometry and doping level, as well as from CMOS integration. The compact, simple topology of these elementary SiNW resonators opens up new paths towards ultra-dense arrays for gas and mass sensing, time keeping or logic switching systems on the SiNW–CMOS platform.