Resonant tunneling via microcrystalline-silicon quantum confinement

Resonant tunneling involving discrete quantum states in microcrystalline-Si ({μ}c-Si) with a-SiO₂ barriers is observed experimentally. The low interface trap densities, and the high barrier height between Si and a-SiO₂, 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-SiO₂/{μ}c-Si/a-SiO₂/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.