The Characterization of Silicon-Based Molecular Devices

Published

September 30, 2007

Author(s)

Nadine Gergel-Hackett, Christina Hacker, Lee J. Richter, Oleg A. Kirillov, Curt A. Richter

Abstract

In order to realize molecular electronic (ME) technology, an intermediate integration with more traditional silicon-based technologies will likely be required. However, there has been little effort to develop the metrology needed to enable the fabrication and characterization of CMOS-compatible ME devices. In this work, we used two different characterization techniques to evaluate the potential of more CMOS-compatible device materials. We first present the electrical characterization of a simple prototypical device structure fabricated on a silicon substrate with a (111) crystalline orientation. To compare these electrical results with the structure of the molecular monolayers (which is critical to confirm that the molecules are playing a role in charge transport), a novel backside incident FTIR technique was used to spectroscopically characterize the molecular monolayers under a full top-metallization. The combination of these characterization techniques showed that silver top contacts, unlike gold top contacts, do not penetrate and displace the molecular monolayer. We then fabricated and electrically characterized a prototypical molecular electronic device using the silicon orientation that is traditionally used for CMOS devices (Si (100)). Assembly on Si (100) can enable integrated ME-CMOS structures that allow on-chip characterization of molecular devices and is a major step on the route to hybrid molecular-CMOS circuitry

Proceedings Title

2007 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics

Conference Dates

March 27-29, 2007

Conference Location

Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Conference Title

Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

hybrid silicon/molecular devices, molecular electronics, self-assembled monolayer

Citation

Gergel-Hackett, N. , Hacker, C. , Richter, L. , Kirillov, O. and Richter, C. (2007), The Characterization of Silicon-Based Molecular Devices, 2007 International Conference on Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics, Gaithersburg, MD, USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=32615 (Accessed October 22, 2025)