What is it about?
Recent target of semiconductor technologies is to manufacture nanosheet FETs. However, electrons' properties in nanosheet channel are questioned if quantum mechanical feature dominates or not. De Broglie length is critical to judge in which technology nodes of ICs quantum mechanical nature dominates.
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Why is it important?
The relationship of technology nodes of IC industries and de Broglie length of electrons in semiconductors is critical to the basic research of nanosheet FETs' performance. Therefore, the precise method to know de Broglie length of electrons in semiconductor nanosheets is important. In this paper, using an example of Si nanosheet, we demonstrated to determine de Broglie length of Si conduction electrons. The result is 11.3 - 11.6 nm, which is greater than the commonly know number (10 nm). The effective mass approximation, which has been extensively used for several decades in this field, is sensitive to this number, meaning in which technology node quantum mechanical nature dominates semiconductor technology.
Perspectives
Two-dimensional materials like TMDC has been extensively discussed to replace semiconductor FETs. However, it will be allowed by the serious difficulty to adopt a new junctions at the interface to TMDC channels. Even though a solution can be demonstrated in the laboratory level, it may be yet difficult in the manufacturing level, in which a sufficient product yield and controllability of manufacturing tolerance of the junctions are required. If we vertically integrated semiconductor nanosheets more, then TMDC transistors might not replace it at last. In the device modeling of the vertical stacking, thickness control and characteristics of nanosheet channels are important. In this meaning, the relation of nanosheet thickness and de Broglie length is an indispensable topic in this field, where or not we can replace nanosheet FETs by TMDC transistors at last.
Hiroshi Watanabe
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A theoretical study on characteristic wavelength of silicon conduction electrons, AIP Advances, May 2025, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0267140.
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