CHARACTERIZATION OF PRECISELY WIDTH-CONTROLLED SI QUANTUM WIRES FABRICATED ON SOI SUBSTRATES

Silicon quantum wire structures with precisely controlled widths have been successfully fabricated on an SOI substrate by an anisotropic etc hing technique. The width of the wires does not depend on the lithogra phy limit but solely on the thickness of the Si film of the SOI substr ate. It is demonstrated that the wires are straight even if the lithog raphy patterns are fluctuated. The minimum width is estimated to be le ss than 10 nm. This technique has been applied to fabricating a quantu m wire FET, which shows fine peaks in drain current as a function of t he gate voltage at low temperatures due to the Coulomb blockade of the single electron tunneling. The oscillations remain even at room tempe rature.