Issue 30, 2016

Coulomb blockade based field-effect transistors exploiting stripe-shaped channel geometries of self-assembled metal nanoparticles

Abstract

Metallic nanoparticles offer possibilities to build basic electric devices with new functionality and improved performance. Due to the small volume and the resulting low self-capacitance, each single nanoparticle exhibits a high charging energy. Thus, a Coulomb-energy gap emerges during transport experiments that can be shifted by electric fields, allowing for charge transport whenever energy levels of neighboring particles match. Hence, the state of the device changes sequentially between conducting and non-conducting instead of just one transition from conducting to pinch-off as in semiconductors. To exploit this behavior for field-effect transistors, it is necessary to use uniform nanoparticles in ordered arrays separated by well-defined tunnel barriers. In this work, CoPt nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution are synthesized by colloidal chemistry. These particles are deposited via the scalable Langmuir–Blodgett technique as ordered, homogeneous monolayers onto Si/SiO2 substrates with pre-patterned gold electrodes. The resulting nanoparticle arrays are limited to stripes of adjustable lengths and widths. In such a defined channel with a limited number of conduction paths the current can be controlled precisely by a gate voltage. Clearly pronounced Coulomb oscillations are observed up to temperatures of 150 K. Using such systems as field-effect transistors yields unprecedented oscillating current modulations with on/off-ratios of around 70%.

Graphical abstract: Coulomb blockade based field-effect transistors exploiting stripe-shaped channel geometries of self-assembled metal nanoparticles

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
25 Mar 2016
Accepted
22 May 2016
First published
23 May 2016
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale, 2016,8, 14384-14392

Author version available

Coulomb blockade based field-effect transistors exploiting stripe-shaped channel geometries of self-assembled metal nanoparticles

H. Lehmann, S. Willing, S. Möller, M. Volkmann and C. Klinke, Nanoscale, 2016, 8, 14384 DOI: 10.1039/C6NR02489K

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