Mesoscopic fluctuations in the conductance of silicon-based MOS structures with a doped surface layer

Abstract

In n-Si-based metal-oxide-semiconductor structures with a boron-doped surface layer, at the temperature T = 77 K, mesoscopic fluctuations in nondiagonal resistance-tensor component R xy are discovered under hole depletion of the Si: B layer caused by the field effect. A sharp increase in the fluctuation in R xy is discovered during the study of a shift from the 3D weakly perturbed hole transport to the quasi-2D percolation conduction on the back boundary of the Si: B layer. The fluctuations in R xy are due to the restructuring that occurs in the percolation cluster when the hole shielding of the fluctuation potential of ionized acceptors is weakened. Correlation length L c of the percolation cluster, which determines the boundary of the transition from the macroscopic to the mesoscopic system, has been estimated experimentally. Good agreement between the estimates and the computational results is observed for L c ranging from ≈ 10 nm to ≈ 1 μm.