Abstract
Metallic silicides interface with silicon in most microelectronic devices. But when the miniaturization of the devices takes their sizes down to the nanoscale, is the chemical and structural integrity of the interfacing materials maintained, and if not, how are the electronic properties of the device affected? Scientists investigate nanoscale transistors based on PtSi/Si/PtSi heterostructures and find that Pt diffuses into the silicon channel to form PtSi clusters that behave as metallic quantum dots in a semiconductor matrix.
Highlights
Metal silicides formed by means of thermal annealing processes are employed as contact materials in microelectronics
Extensive research has been devoted to the replacement of the heavily doped silicon contact regions of conventional metal-oxide-semiconductor fieldeffect transistors (MOSFETs) with metallic binary compounds of silicon and a transition element, generally referred to as metal silicides [1]
The formation of the silicide is accompanied by the accumulation of n-type dopants close to the platinum silicide (PtSi)/n-Si interface leading to a suppression of the effective Schottky barrier (SB) height
Summary
Massimo Mongillo,* Panayotis Spathis, Georgios Katsaros, and Silvano De Franceschi† SPSMS/LaTEQS, CEA-INAC/UJF-Grenoble 1, 17 Rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France. The attractiveness of PtSi is limited to p-channel SB transistors This metal silicide has been successfully used for the fabrication of inverters in complementary metal-oxidesemiconductor (CMOS) technology, where it forms the contact material of both p-type and n-type transistors [3]. In the latter case, the formation of the silicide is accompanied by the accumulation of n-type dopants (typically As or P) close to the PtSi/n-Si interface leading to a suppression of the effective SB height. The possible simultaneous diffusion of metal impurities into the channel region, can alter important figures of merit such as the subthreshold slope of the on-state current leading to an
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