Transport limitations and Schottky barrier height in titanium silicide nanowires grown on the Si(111) surface

The authors have performed electrical measurements at variable temperatures on self-assembled titanium silicide nanowires (NWs) grown on a Si(111) surface. The authors find a metallic I(V) characteristic for the NWs at a temperature of 77 K, whereas scanning tunneling spectroscopic measurements obtained at temperatures below 25 K yield a rectifying behavior. This behavior indicates that the NWs are electronically decoupled from the Si surface on a voltage range of several hundreds of meV at low temperatures. From these measurements, the authors precisely determine the Schottky barrier height between the NWs and the Si surface. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.