Interfacial stress engineering toward enhancement of ferroelectricity in Al doped HfO_(2) thin films

Ferroelectric HfO_(2)has attracted much attention owing to its superior ferroelectricity at an ultra-thin thickness and good compatibility with Si-based complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor(CMOS)technology.However,the crystallization of polar orthorhombic phase(o-phase)HfO_(2)is less competitive,which greatly limits the ferroelectricity of the as-obtained ferroelectric HfO_(2)thin films.Fortunately,the crystallization of o-phase HfO_(2)can be thermodynamically modulated via interfacial stress engineering.In this paper,the growth of improved ferroelectric Al doped HfO_(2)(HfO_(2):Al)thin films on(111)-oriented Si substrate has been reported.Structural analysis has suggested that nonpolar monoclinic HfO_(2):Al grown on(111)-oriented Si substrate suffered from a strong compressive strain,which promoted the crystallization of(111)-oriented o-phase HfO_(2)in the as-grown HfO_(2):Al thin films.In addition,the in-plane lattice of(111)-oriented Si substrate matches well with that of(111)-oriented o-phase HfO_(2),which further thermally stabilizes the o-phase HfO_(2).Accordingly,an improved ferroelectricity with a remnant polarization(2P_(r))of 26.7C/cm^(2) has been obtained.The results shown in this work provide a simple way toward the preparation of improved ferroelectric HfO_(2)thin films.

Electrical Characterization of Metal-Insulator-Metal Capacitors with Atomic-Layer-Deposited HfO2 Dielectrics for Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit Application

Metal-insulator-metal （MIM） capacitors with atomic-layer-deposited HfO2 dielectric and TaN electrodes are investigated for rf integrated circuit applications. For 12nm HfO2, the fabricated capacitor exhibits a high capacitance density of 15.5fF/μm2 at 100kHz, a small leakage current density of 6.4 × 10^-9 A/cm^2 at 1.8V and 125℃, a breakdown electric field of 2.6 MV//cm as well as voltage coefficients of capacitance （VCCs） of 2110ppm/V^2 and -824 ppm/V at 100kHz. Further, it is deduced that the conduction mechanism in the high field range is dominated by the Poole-Frenkel emission, and the conduction mechanism in the low field range is possibly related to trap-assisted tunnelling. Finally, comparison of various HfO2 MIM capacitors is present, suggesting that the present MIM capacitor is a promising candidate for future rf integrated circuit application.

Light trapping characteristics of glass substrate with hemisphere pit arrays in thin film Si solar cells

In this paper, the light trapping characteristics of glass substrate with hemisphere pit （HP） arrays in thin film Si solar cells are theoretically studied via a numerical approach. It is found that the HP glass substrate has good antireflection properties. Its surface reflectance can be reduced by - 50% compared with planar glass. The HP arrays can make the unabsorbed light return to the absorbing layer of solar cells, and the ratio of second absorption approximately equals 30%. Thus, the glass substrate with the hemisphere pit arrays （HP glass） can effectively reduce the total reflectivity of a solar celt from 20% to 13%. The lip glass can also prolong the optical path length. The numerical results show that the total optical path length of the thin film Si solar cell covered with the HP glass increases from 2ω to 409. These results are basically consistent with the experimental results.

QUANTUM MECHANICAL MODEL AND SIMULATION OF GaAs/AlGaAs QUANTUM WELL INFRARED PHOTO-DETECTOR-ⅠOPTICAL ASPECTS

A complete quantum mechanical model for GaAs?AlGaAs quantum well infrared photodetectors(QWIPs) is presented here. The model consisted of four parts: (1) Starting with the description of the electromagnetic field of the infrared radiation in the QWIP, effective component of the vector potential <| A z |> along the QWIP growth direction ( z axis) due to the optical diffraction grating was calculated. (2) From the wave transmissions and the occupations of the electronic states, it was discussed that the dark current in the QWIP is determined by the drift diffusion current of carriers thermally excited from the ground sublevel in the quantum well to extended states above the barrier. (3) The photocurrent was investigated by the optical transition (absorption coefficient between the ground state to excited states due to the nonzero <| A z |> ). (4) By studying the inter diffusion of the Al atoms across the GaAs?AlGaAs heterointerfaces,the mobility of the drift diffusion carriers in the excited states was calculated, so the measurement results of the dark current and photocurrent spectra can be explained theoretically. With the complete quantum mechanical descriptions of (1 4), QWIP device design and optimization are possible.

Effect of Trimethyl Aluminium Surface Pretreatment on Atomic Layer Deposition Al2O3 Ultra-Thin Film on Si Substrate

Ultra-thin Al2O3 dielectric films have been deposited on Si substrates by using trimethyl aluminium （TMA） and water as precursors in an atomic layer deposition （ALD） system. Growth of the interracial layer between ultra-thin Al2O3 and the Si substrate is effectively suppressed by a long-time TMA surface pretreatment of the Si substrate prior to A1203 atomic layer deposition. High resolution transmission electron microscopy （TEM） images show that the thickness of the interracial layer is reduced to be 0.5nm for the sample with TMA pretreatment lasting 3600s. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results indicate that the A1203 film deposited on the TMApretreated Si surface exhibits very good thermal stability. However, a hysteresis of about 50mV is observed in the C- V curve of the samples with the TMA pretreatment.

Performance and analytical modelling of halo-doped surrounding gate MOSFETs

Halo structure is added to sub-100 nm surrounding-gate metal-oxide-semiconductor fieldeffect-transistors （MOS- FETs） to suppress short channel effect. This paper develops the analytical surface potential and threshold voltage models based on the solution of Poisson＇s equation in fully depleted condition for symmetric halo-doped cylindrical surrounding gate MOSFETs. The performance of the halo-doped device is studied and the validity of the analytical models is verified by comparing the analytical results with the simulated data by three dimensional numerical device simulator Davinci. It shows that the halo doping profile exhibits better performance in suppressing threshold voltage roll-off and drain-induced barrier lowering, and increasing carrier transport efficiency. The derived analytical models are in good agreement with Davinci.

Analysis of recoverable and permanent components of threshold voltage shift in NBT stressed p-channel power VDMOSFET

In this study we investigate the dynamic recovery effects in IRF9520 commercial p-channel power vertical double diffused metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors（VDMOSFETs） subjected to negative bias temperature（NBT）stressing under the particular pulsed bias. Particular values of the pulsed stress voltage frequency and duty cycle are chosen in order to analyze the recoverable and permanent components of stress-induced threshold voltage shift in detail. The results are discussed in terms of the mechanisms responsible for buildup of oxide charge and interface traps. The partial recovery during the low level of pulsed gate voltage is ascribed to the removal of recoverable component of degradation, i.e., to passivation/neutralization of shallow oxide traps that are not transformed into the deeper traps（permanent component）.Considering the value of characteristic time constant associated with complete removal of the recoverable component of degradation, it is shown that by selecting an appropriate combination of the frequency and duty cycle, the threshold voltage shifts induced under the pulsed negative bias temperature stress conditions can be significantly reduced, which may be utilized for improving the device lifetime in real application circuits.

Advanced Strategies of Passivating Perovskite Defects for High-Performance Solar Cells

Organic–inorganic halide perovskite(OIHP)solar cells have garnered great attention in the last decade since they continuously approach the Shockley–Queisser Limit.Compared with conventional organic and inorganic semiconductors,OIHPs possess the high tolerance on defects due to the dominated intrinsically shallow-level carrier-trapping centers.However,the existence of defects still causes the ion migration,produces the hysteresis effect,and accelerates the film degradation,eventually suppressing the device efficiency and stability.In this Review Article,we summarize recent impressive advance on passivating OIHP defects and discuss the future horizon of exploiting high-efficiency and long-stability OIHP solar cells in terms of defect managements.

Electrospun fluorescein/polymer composite nanofibers and their photoluminescent properties

Fluorescein/polyvinyl pyrrolidone （PVP） composite nanofibers with different fluorescein loadings （with a weight concentration of 0-5.0%） are fabricated via electrospinning. Morphologies, structures and photoluminescent （PL） prop- erties of these straight, helical or wavelike fibers are characterized by scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, fluorescence microscopy and a spectrophotometer. It is found that the maximum emission of the as-spun fluorescein/PVP fibers occurs at 510 nm. The PL intensity of the composite fiber increases with fluorescein concentration, then fluorescence quenching appears when the concentration reaches 1.67%. The mechanism of fluorescence quenching of fiuorescein is discussed. In addition, the composite fibers exhibit a much stronger PL intensity than fluorescein/PVP bulk film owing to larger specific surface area, which makes them promising materials for biomedical applications such as probes and sensors.

Multiobjective Optimal Design of Underwater Acoustic Projector with Porous Piezocomposite Active Elements

This paper concerns the optimization problem for multilayered ultrasonic transducer with active porous piezoelectric layer. The dependences of the effective moduli for porous piezoelectric material on porosity have been previously obtained and allowed to decrease the number of design variables. The multiobjective optimization problem based on the Pareto-frontier calculation has been solved using the live-link of finite-element (FE) package Comsol Multiphysics with MATLAB.

Novel Operation Mechanism of Capacitorless DRAM Cell Using Impact Ionization and GIDL Effects

A novel operation mechanism of capacitorless SOl-DRAM （silicon on insulator dynamic random access memory） cell using impact ionization and GIDL （gated-induce drain leakage） effects for write ＂1＂ operation was proposed. The conventional capacitorless DRAM cell with single charge generating effect is either high speed or low power, while the proposed DG-FinFET （double-gate fin field effect transistor） cell employs the efficient integration of impact ionization and GIDL effects by coupling the front and back gates with optimal body doping profile and proper bias conditions, yielding high speed low power performance. The simulation results demonstrate ideal characteristics in both cell operations and power consumption. Low power consumption is achieved by using GIDL current at 0. luA when the coupling between the front and back gates restrains the impact ionization current in the first phase. The write operation of the cell is within Ins attributed to significant current of the impact ionization effect in the second phase. By shortening second phase, power consumption could be further decreased. The ratio of read ＂1＂ and read ＂0＂ current is more than 9.38E5. Moreover, the cell has great retention characteristics.

Characterization of Al2O3 Thin Films on GaAs Substrate Grown by Atomic Layer Deposition

Al2O3 thin films are grown by atomic layer deposition on GaAs substrates at 300℃. The structural properties of the Al2O3 thin film and the Al2O3/GaAs interface are characterized using x-ray diffraction （XRD）, high- resolution transmission electron microscopy （HRTEM）, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （XPS）. The XRD results show that the as-deposited Al2O3 film is amorphous. For 30 atomic layer deposition growth cycles, the thicknesses of the Al2O3 thin film and the interface layer from the HRTEM are 3.3 nm and 0.Snm, respectively. XPS analyses reveal that the Al2O3/GaAs interface is almost free from As2O3.

MBE Growth of Highly Relaxed Si0.45 Ge0.55 Films with Very Low Misfit Dislocation Density on Si （001） Substrates

We investigate the molecular-beam-epitaxy growth of highly relaxed Si0.45 Ge0.55 films with very low dislocation densities. By using the Si3N4 film as the mask material, the Si0.45Ge0.55 film can be grown on a compositionally stepwise graded SiGe buffer layer in 3 μm× 3 μm windows on a Si （001） substrate. Raman scattering spectroscopy measurement shows that more than 90% strain of the Si0.45Ge0.55 film is relaxed, and almost neither misfit dislocation lines nor etch pits of thread dislocations could be observed when the sample is etched by the modified Schimmel etchant. We suggest that the results can be explained by influence of the edge-induced strain relaxation of the epitaxial film and the edge-induced stress of the mask material.

Effect of Pretreatment of TaN Substrates on Atomic Layer Deposition Growth of Ru Thin Films

The polycrystalline ruthenium films are grown on TaN substrates by atomic layer deposition （ALD） using bis（cyclopentadienyl） ruthenium [RuCp2] and oxygen as ruthenium precursor and reactant respectively at a deposition temperature of 330℃. The low-energy Ar ion bombardment and Ru pre-deposition are performed to the underlying TaN substrates before ALD process in order to improve the Ru nucleation. X-ray diffraction, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy are carried out to characterize the properties of ALD Ru films. The results show that the nucleation density of Ru films with Ar^＋ bombardment to the underlying TaN substrates is much higher than that of the ones without any pretreatment. The possible reasons are discussed.

Characteristics of cylindrical surrounding-gate GaAs_xSb_(1-x)/In_yGa_(1-y)As heterojunction tunneling field-effect transistors

A Ⅲ-Ⅴ heterojunction tunneling field-effect transistor(TFET) can enhance the on-state current effectively,and GaAsSb/InGaAs heterojunction exhibits better performance with the adjustable band alignment by modulating the alloy composition.In this paper,the performance of the cylindrical surrounding-gate GaAsSb/InGaAs heterojunction TFET with gate-drain underlap is investigated by numerical simulation.We validate that reducing drain doping concentration and increasing gate-drain underlap could be effective ways to reduce the off-state current and subthreshold swing(SS),while increasing source doping concentration and adjusting the composition of GaAsSbInGaAs can improve the on-state current.In addition,the resonant TFET based on GaAsSb/InGaAs is also studied,and the result shows that the minimum and average of SS reach 11 mV/decade and 20 mV/decade for five decades of drain current,respectively,and is much superior to the conventional TFET.

Experimental and theoretical study on field emission properties of zinc oxide nanoparticles decorated carbon nanotubes

Field emission properties of zinc oxide （ZnO） nanoparticles （NPs） decorated carbon nanotubes （CNTs） are investigated experimentally and theoretically. CNTs are in situ decorated with ZnO NPs during the growth process by chemical vapor deposition using a carbon source from the iron phthalocyanine pyrolysis. The experimental field emission test shows that the ZnO NP decoration significantly improves the emission current from 50 μA to 275 μA at 550 V and the reduced threshold voltage from 450 V to 350 V. The field emission mechanism of ZnO NPs on CNTs is theoretically studied by the density functional theory （DFT） combined with the Penn-Plummer method. The ZnO NPs reconstruct the ZnO-CNT structure and pull down the surface barrier of the entire emitter system to 0.49 eV so as to reduce the threshold electric field. The simulation results suggest that the presence of ZnO NPs would increase the LDOS near the Fermi level and increase the emission current. The calculation results are consistent with the experiment results.

Thermal activation of current in an inhomogeneous Schottky diode with a Gaussian distribution of barrier height

This paper investigates the thermal activation behaviour of current in an inhomogeneous Schottky diode with a Gaussian distribution of barrier height by numerical simulation. The analytical Gaussian distribution model predicted that the I-VT curves may intersect with the possibility of the negative thermal activation of current, but may be contradictory to the thermionic emission mechanism in a Schottky diode. It shows that the cause of the unphysical phenomenon is related to the incorrect calculation of current across very low barriers. It proposes that junction voltage Vj, excluding the voltage drop across series resistance from the external bias, is a crucial parameter for correct calculation of the current across very low barriers. For correctly employing the thermionic emission model, Vj needs to be smaller than the barrier height Ф. With proper scheme of series resistance connection where the condition of Vj 〉 Ф is guaranteed, I-V T curves of an inhomogeneous Schottky diode with a Gaussian distribution of barrier height have been simulated, which demonstrate normal thermal activation. Although the calculated results exclude the intersecting possibility of I-V T curves with an assumption of temperature-independent series resistance, it shows that the intersecting is possible when the series resistance has a positive temperature coefficient. Finally, the comparison of our numerical and analytical results indicates that the analytical Gaussian distribution model is valid and accurate in analysing I-V-T curves only for small barrier height inhomogeneity.

Simulation of the influence of imperfections on dynamical decoupling of a superconducting qubit

Dynamical decoupling is widely used in many quantum computing systems to combat decoherence. In a practical superconducting quantum system, imperfections can plague decoupling performance. In this work, imperfections in a superconducting qubit and its control system are modeled via modified Hamiltonian and collapse operator. A master equation simulation is carried out on the qubit under 1/f environment noise spectrum. The average dephasing rate of qubit is extracted to characterize the impact of different imperfections on the decoupling from dephasing. We find that the precision of pulse position, on–off ratio, and filtering effect are most critical. Bounded pulses have weaker impact,while variation in pulse width and qubit relaxation are insignificant. Consequently, alternative decoupling protocols, jitter mitigation, cascaded mixers, and pulse shaping can be conducive to the performance of decoupling. This work may assist the analysis and optimization of dynamical decoupling on noisy superconducting quantum systems.

Band Structures of Metal-Oxide Capped Graphene： A First Principles Study

We perform a first-principles calculation based on density functional theory to investigate the interface between single layer graphene and metal oxides. Our study reveals that the monolayer graphene becomes semiconducting by single crystal SiO2 and Al2O3 contact, with energy gaps to - 0.9 and - 1.8 eV, respectively. We find the gap originates from the breakage of π bond integrity, whose extent is related to the interface atom configuration. We believe that our results highlight a promising direction for the feasibility to apply large scale graphene layers as building blocks in future electronics devices.

Construction of two-qubit logical gates by transmon qubits in a three-dimensional cavity

We report the implementation of qubit-lubit coupling in a three-dimensional （3D） cavity, using the exchange of virtual photons, to realize logical operations. We measure single photon and multi-photon transitions in this qubit-qubit coupling system and obtain its energy avoided-crossing spectrum. With ac-Stark effect, fast control of the qubits is achieved to tune the effective coupling on and off and the state-swap gate SWAP is successfully constructed. Moreover, using two-photon transition between the ground state and doubly observed. A quarter period of this oscillation corresponds to states, bSWAP and are the foundations of future gate excited states, a kind of two-photon Rabi-like oscillation is the logical gate bSbSWAP, which is used for generating Bell preparation of two-qubit Bell states and realization of CNOT