A good productive month for Aftab. This time in Journal of
Applied Physics in collaboration with Dr. Nirpendra Singh and Prof. Udo
Schwingenschloegl.
Exploring SiSn as a
Performance Enhancing Semiconductor: A Theoretical and Experimental Approach
Aftab M. Hussain1, Nirpendra Singh2, Hossain Fahad1,
Kelly Rader1, Udo Schwingenschlögl2, Muhammad Hussain1
1Integrated
Nanotechnology Lab, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal,
Saudi Arabia
2Material Science and Engineering
Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi
Arabia
We present a novel semiconducting
alloy, silicon-tin (SiSn), as channel material for complementary metal oxide
semiconductor (CMOS) circuit applications. The material has been studied
theoretically using first principles analysis as well as experimentally by
fabricating MOSFETs. Our study suggests that the alloy offers interesting
possibilities in the realm of silicon band gap tuning. We have explored
diffusion of tin (Sn) into the industry’s most widely used substrate, silicon
(100), as it is the most cost effective, scalable and CMOS compatible way of
obtaining SiSn. Our theoretical model predicts a higher mobility for p-channel
SiSn MOSFETs, due to a lower effective mass of the holes, which has been
experimentally validated using the fabricated MOSFETs. We report an increase of
13.6% in the average field effect hole mobility for SiSn devices compared to
silicon control devices.
Journal of Applied
Physics (JAP) is an
influential international journal publishing significant new experimental and
theoretical results of applied physics research. The journal also publishes
special collections focusing on research of particular current or emerging
interest. Journal of Applied Physics retains its spot as the most highly cited journal
in Applied Physics, publishing original, full-length articles.(Thomson Reuters, 2014): Five-Year
Impact Factor 2.259.
Having a low cost solution for SiSn compared to Stanford-NUS’s
GeSn is definitely competitive. Way to go, Aftab – keep it up!