Enhanced tunneling across nanometer-scale metal–semiconductor interfaces

Smit, G.D.J.; Rogge, S.; Klapwijk, T.M.

doi:doi:10.1063/1.1467980

Enhanced tunneling across nanometer-scale metal–semiconductor interfaces

Title

Enhanced tunneling across nanometer-scale metal–semiconductor interfaces

Author

Smit, G.D.J.
Rogge, S.
Klapwijk, T.M.

Faculty

Applied Sciences

Department

Kavli Institute of Nanoscience

Date

2002-04-08

Abstract

We have measured electrical transport across epitaxial, nanometer-sized metal–semiconductor interfaces by contacting CoSi2 islands grown on Si(111) with the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. The conductance per unit area was found to increase with decreasing diode area. Indeed, the zero-bias conductance was found to be ? 104 times larger than expected from downscaling a conventional diode. These observations are explained by a model, which predicts a narrower barrier for small diodes and, therefore, a greatly increased contribution of tunneling to the electrical transport.

Subject

semiconductor-metal boundaries
cobalt compounds
silicon
elemental semiconductors
tunnelling
metallic epitaxial layers
discontinuous metallic thin films
scanning tunnelling microscopy
Schottky diodes
Schottky barriers