Fabrication and Electrical Characteristics of Single Electron Tunneling Devices Based on Si Quantum Dots Prepared by Plasma Processing

This paper presents results on the fabrication of single electron tunneling devices using silicon nanocrystals. We prepare silicon nanocrystals of uniform particle size by very-high-frequency plasma processing and deposit them on a poly-silicon electrode structure having a very small inter-electrode separation of 26–70 nm. Current-voltage (I–V) characteristics show Coulomb blockade and Coulomb staircase at 77 K. For very narrow electrode separation, Coulomb staircase appears in I-V characteristics even at room temperature.