Electron transport in laterally confined phosphorusδlayers in silicon

Two-dimensional electron systems fabricated from a single layer of P-donors have been lithographically confined to nanometer scale in lateral directions. The electronic transport of such quasi-one-dimensional systems with and without a perpendicular magnetic field was characterized at cryogenic temperatures. Experimental data fit well with two-dimensional weak localization and interaction theory when the phase coherence length is shorter than the smaller dimension of the confinement. Below a transition temperature the wire conductance saturates.