Nanoscale thin single-crystal silicon and its application to electronics

Abstract

We demonstrate a method for achieving thin (tens of nanometers) single-crystal silicon films with electronic-quality bulk and surface properties, atomic-scale surface roughness, and suitable for use in complex multilayered structures. The thin silicon film is achieved by defining thickness through the use of oxidation depth as a reference, transfer of film structure by exfoliation, and chemical-mechanical polishing for selective thin film definition. Such structures are useful in a variety of directions: in electronic devices such as field-effect transistors, in characterization studies such as those utilizing vertical transport using thicknesses of the order of mean free path length, etc. We demonstrate its use in a silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor with two gates, one on each side of the thin silicon film on a planar substrate.