Effect of Metal-Silicon Nanowire Contacts on the Performance of Accumulation Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor

Recently, we have experimentally demonstrated a very simply structured unipolar accumulation-type metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (AMOSFET) using grow-in-place silicon nanowires. The AMOSFET consists of a single doping type nanowire, metal source and drain contacts which are separated by a partially gated region. Despite its simple coil figuration, it is capable of high performance thereby offering the potential of a low manufacturing-cost transistor. Since the quality of the metal/semiconductor ohmic source and drain contacts impacts AMOSFET performance, we repot here on initial exploration of contact variations and of the impact of thermal process history. With process optimization, Current on/off ratios of 10(6) and subthreshold swings of 70 mV/dec have been achieved with these simple devices.