Ultra-shallow dopant profiles as in-situ electrodes in scanning probe microscopy

Abstract

The application of nano materials to control advanced functionality in semiconductor devices has reached the atomic scale. At this dimension the exact chemical and structural composition of a device is crucial for its performance. Rapid inspection techniques are required to find the optimal combination among numerous materials. However, to date the earliest electrical inspection is carried out after multiple fabrication processes. This delay makes the fabrication of atomically designed components very challenging. Here, we propose a sample system to chemically characterize nanoscale devices in-operando. We introduce ion-implanted contacts which embedded in the sample serve as additional electrodes to carry out scanning gate experiments. We demonstrate that the presence of these electrodes does not deteriorate the surface quality. The potential of this approach is highlighted by controlling the charge state of single dangling bonds on the silicon surface. Apart from our novel sample holder, the experimental setup was not modified making this approach compatible to most commercial low-temperature scanning probe microscopes. For silicon based devices, the versatility of this method is a promising avenue to gain a detailed and rapid understanding of functionalized atomic devices and quantum interactions at the atomic level.