The development of nanocrystalline silicon for emerging microelectronic and nanoelectronic applications

Films consisting of nanometer-scale silicon crystals with narrow size distribution can be fabricated using a variety of techniques and are of technological interest for nonvolatile semiconductor memory applications. One fabrication technique based on the crystallization of thin amorphous silicon films also shows potential for large-scale production of single isolated nanocrystals for future single-electron transistor and memory applications. A review of the most promising nanocrystalline silicon fabrication techniques and a discussion of current research in the area of crystallized thin-film amorphous silicon are presented in this article.