Influence of plate acoustic waves on electronic transport in nanowires

Abstract

The acoustoelectric effect is the generation of a acoustoelectric current in a non-biased device by a piezoactive acoustic wave. This effect has recently attracted the attention of researchers as a possible method to control the motion of massive objects in the quantum regime. We suggest using this effect for development of highly sensitive nanoelectronic sensors. The sensitivity could be increased through the use of modulation mode of operation based on the acoustic pilot signal and the transition from quasi-stationary measurement to measurement at the modulation frequency. The acoustic delay line based on shear-horizontal acoustic wave of zero order (SH0) with resonant frequency 3.25 MHz in Y-X LiNbO3 plate was produced. The nanostructure consisting of nanowire with size 20 nm × 180 nm was placed in the center between IDTs. The current–voltage characteristics of this nanowire in the presence and absence of the acoustic wave were meazured by a picoampermeter. The analysis has shown that the presence of piezoactive acoustic wave is influenced by electric current in a nanowire.