AVS 51st International Symposium
    Electronic Materials and Processing Tuesday Sessions
       Session EM-TuM

Paper EM-TuM6
Fabrication, Processing and Specific Contact Resistance Measurements of Contacts to Semiconductor Nanowires

Tuesday, November 16, 2004, 10:00 am, Room 304B

Session: Contacts and Metallization
Presenter: S. Dey, The Pennsylvania State University
Authors: S. Dey, The Pennsylvania State University
Y. Wang, The Pennsylvania State University
K.-K. Lew, The Pennsylvania State University
T.S. Mayer, The Pennsylvania State University
J.M. Redwing, The Pennsylvania State University
S.E. Mohney, The Pennsylvania State University
Correspondent: Click to Email
Ohmic contacts to semiconductor nanowires will be an essential component of many novel nanoscale electronic devices. In this presentation, we discuss the selection of metallizations and annealing conditions to lower the resistance of ohmic contacts to silicon nanowires, and we describe a method for measuring the specific contact resistance (or contact resistivity) of these contacts. To compare contact metallizations and processing conditions, silicon nanowires have been aligned using field-assisted assembly, and contacts have been fabricated using aluminum, palladium and titanium/gold metallizations. Aluminum and palladium contacts to p-type silicon nanowires have shown a reduction in contact resistance upon annealing. To then extract the specific contact resistance (or contact resistivity), equations have been developed that treat the metal/semiconductor nanowire contact as a transmission line, leading to the development of equations analogous to those used for describing contacts to semiconductor thin films using the transmission line model (TLM). The modified or nanowire TLM equations can be applied to several different metal/semiconductor nanowire test structures, and the advantages and disadvantages of the various geometries for testing the contacts are discussed. Finally, we provide the results of measurements in which we apply the nanowire TLM equations to a convenient test structure.