Encoding Electronic Properties by Synthesis of Axial Modulation-Doped Silicon Nanowires
Chen Yang,1*
Zhaohui Zhong,1*
Charles M. Lieber1,2
We describe the successful synthesis of modulation-doped silicon
nanowires by achieving pure axial elongation without radial
overcoating during the growth process. Scanning gate microscopy
shows that the key properties of the modulated structures—including
the number, size, and period of the differentially doped regions—are
defined in a controllable manner during synthesis, and moreover,
that feature sizes to less than 50 nanometers are possible.
Electronic devices fabricated with designed modulation-doped
nanowire structures demonstrate their potential for lithography-independent
address decoders and tunable, coupled quantum dots in which
changes in electronic properties are encoded by synthesis rather
than created by conventional lithography-based techniques.
2 Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: cml{at}cmliris.harvard.edu
