IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology

The advance of graphene-based nanoelectronics has been hampered due to the difficulty in producing single- or few-layer graphene over large areas. We report a simple, scalable, and cost-efficient method to prepare graphene using methane-based CVD on nickel films deposited over complete Si/SiO2 wafers. By using highly diluted methane, single- and few-layer graphene were obtained, as conf... View full abstract»

Teflon AF thin films have been directly patterned by electron-beam lithography without the need for chemical development. The pattern depth was found to be linearly related to exposure dose and increases with increasing film thickness. Features as small as 200 nm have been resolved. Fourier transform infrared measurements indicate that the electron-beam-induced patterning is related to degradation... View full abstract»

Magnetite nanoparticles were surface modified with five kinds of agents and used to enhance gene transfection. Standard polyethyleneimine (PEI) transfections were found to be enhanced only for the magnetic nanoparticles with strong surface potentials, since these can form complexes with PEI or genes via electrostatic interactions. Thus, it is not necessary to prepare gene-vector-coated magnetic na... View full abstract»

A detailed analysis of the contrast and lateral resolution between a dc-biased tip and metallic nanowires over a dielectric sample is presented. The theoretical technique used to analyze the interaction intrinsically includes the mutual polarization between the tip, the sample, and the metallic objects. A good selection of the dielectric constant of the sample is found to be critical since it can ... View full abstract»

Using density functional theory calculations, we investigate the electronic structures and field emission properties of carbon nanocones (CNCs). We find that the cohesive and formation energies for various types of CNCs are dependent on the cone angles, while the work function, local density of states, redistribution of the charge, and field emission pattern are sensitive to the morphologies of CN... View full abstract»

First principles density functional theory has been used to calculate the 2-D band structure of Si slabs with different thicknesses. From the calculated 2-D band structure, electron longitudinal and transverse effective masses have been extracted as a function of the slab thickness. These thickness-dependent electron effective masses have then been used to simulate I D-VG View full abstract»

Due to a new quasi-ballistic extraction methodology dedicated to low-longitudinal-field conditions, experimental carrier mean-free-paths have been determined on strained and unstrained fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (n-FDSOI) devices with Si film thickness ranging from 11.8 to 2.5 nm, gate length down to 30 nm, and a TiN/HfO2 gate stack. Electron mobility evolution with the Si film... View full abstract»

The operation of nanoelectromechanical switches is investigated through simulation. A simple methodology based on a 1-D lumped model taking account of the Casimir effect is first proposed to determine a low-voltage actuation window for conventional cantilevers. Results show good agreement with 3-D simulation and prove to be helpful for systematic design. The conventional cantilever shape is then o... View full abstract»

In this study, the authors proposed a formation mechanism of Ge nanocrystals (NCs) embedded in the dielectric by using Si1.33Ge0.67O2 and Si2.67Ge1.33N2 films for nonvolatile memory (NVM) application. Because of internal competition reaction, this formation process reduced the thermal budget and eliminated the use of high-pressure H... View full abstract»

Using a self-aligned fabrication process together with multiple-step aligned electron beam lithography, we have developed a nanopillar structure where a third contact can be made to any point within a thin-film multilayer stack. This substantially enhances the versatility of the device by providing the means to apply independent electrical biases to two separate parts of the structure. Here, we de... View full abstract»

Closely packed carbon nanotube (CNT) bundles are expected to have higher conductivity than copper and could potentially replace copper for electrical and thermal conductors in IC chips. However, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to controllably grow closely packed CNT bundles. We report on a novel postgrowth capillary densification method, which results in dramatic increase of CNT site... View full abstract»

In this paper, a physical investigation of hybrid molecular/Si memory capacitor structures is proposed, where redox-active molecules act as storage medium. Fc and ZnAB3P porphyrin were grafted on (100) Si with both a direct bond and a chemical linker in order to investigate the electron transfer properties of the molecule/Si system. The chemical structures of the molecular layers were a... View full abstract»

In this paper, hybrid transmission line-quantum mechanical models are proposed for the analysis of the signal propagation along metallic and quasi-metallic single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) and bundles of SWCNTs. The analysis is based on the general assumption that the SWCNT is characterized by n energy subbands crossing the Fermi level. The proposed model is derived from a new developmen... View full abstract»

Frequency response function (FRF) showing ac gain from a single-walled carbon nanotube transistor is presented. A top-gated carbon nanotube FET (CNFET) is configured as a common-source amplifier and the FRF of the amplifier is measured. Evidence of unambiguous signal amplification is observed in time domain as well as frequency domain up to a unity voltage gain frequency of approximately 560 kHz. ... View full abstract»

The high-frequency and time-dependent behavior of carbon-nanotube (CN) transistors is examined by numerically solving the time-dependent Boltzmann transport equation self-consistently with the Poisson equation. The two-port admittance matrix, containing the transistor's y-parameters, is extracted. At frequencies below the transistor's unity-current-gain frequency fT, the y-par... View full abstract»

As a 1-D nanostructural material, carbon nanotube (CNT) has attracted lot of attention and has been used to build various nanoelectronic devices due to its unique electronic properties. In this paper, a reliable and efficient nanomanufacturing process was developed for building single-CNT-based nanodevices by depositing the CNTs on the substrate surface and then aligning them to bridge the electro... View full abstract»

Carbon-nanotube-based vacuum gauges have been developed and characterized, which primarily utilize the thermal conductivity principle. The vacuum gauges, comprising 5- to 10-mu m-long single-walled nanotubes contacted on either end with Au/Cr electrodes, have been shown to operate at low power (nanowatts to microwatts) and exhibit a wide dynamic range from 760 to 10-6 torr. Pressure sen... View full abstract»

The paper presents a novel probabilistic logical model to describe the nanodevice states. It describes the probability distribution of outputs. The model is based on observations on statistical physics and Markov random field. Different from previous model [Bahar (2004), Nano, Quantum and Molecular Computing: Implications to High Level... View full abstract»

By taking advantage of the silicon-on-insulator technology and the in situ carbon nanotube (CNT) growth, new local silicon-gate carbon nanotube FETs (CNFETs) have been implemented in this paper. We propose an approach to integrate the CNFET onto the silicon CMOS platform for the first time. Individual device operation, batch fabrication, low parasitic capacitance, and better compatib... View full abstract»

We report the formation and optical characteristics of GaSb/GaAs type-II quantum dots (QDs) by using an interfacial misfit (IMF) growth mode. A V/III ratio during the growth of GaSb QDs determines the selectivity of IMF and conventional Stranski-Krastanov (SK) growth modes. This transition between SK and optimized IMF QDs is rather abrupt and occurs within a factor-of-2 variations in V/III ratio. ... View full abstract»