Development of a high-k gate stack for atomic-precision advanced manufacturing

Atomic-precision advanced manufacturing (APAM) is a process in which a scanning tunneling microscope is used to create atomically precise conducting channels in Si. Gating of APAM devices is typically achieved by patterning electrical gates in the same plane as the channel. Higher transconductance could be achieved by adopting a vertical metal-oxide-semiconductor gate stack. Here we report on the development of such a gate stack incorporating high-k dielectrics. The process flow is designed to be APAM compatible with an ultra-low thermal budget. We evaluate the quality of the gate stack using capacitance-voltage measurements. This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program at Sandia National Laboratories and was performed, in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a U.S. DOE, Office of Basic Energy Sciences user facility. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government.