FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ROOM-TEMPERATURE SILICON SINGLE-ELECTRON MEMORY

A single electron memory was demonstrated in crystalline silicon that has a transistor channel width of similar to 10 nm and a nanoscale flo ating gate of dimension similar to(7 nm x 7 nm x 2 nm), patterned by e lectron beam lithography, lift-off, and reactive ion etching. Quantize d shift in the threshold voltage and self-limited charging process hav e been observed at room temperature. Analysis has shown that these qua ntized characteristics are the results of single electron charging eff ect in the nanoscale floating gate. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Society.