Resonant tunneling via microcrystalline-silicon quantum confinement

Abstract

Resonant tunneling involving discrete quantum states in microcrystalline-Si (\ensuremath{\mu}c-Si) with a-${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$ barriers is observed experimentally. The low interface trap densities, and the high barrier height between Si and a-${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$, allow the observation of several aspects in the physics of quantum confinement. Even for extreme quantum confinement at low gate bias, applied to the Al/a-${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$/\ensuremath{\mu}c-Si/a-${\mathrm{SiO}}_{2}$/c-Si structure, the effects of quantized charge accumulation dominate over the wider separation of the energy levels of the quantum box. At high gate bias, we observe a transition from a three dimensionally to a one dimensionally confined system.