A. M. Burke

InAs Nanowire Transistors with Multiple, Independent Wrap-Gate Segments.

We report a method for making horizontal wrap-gate nanowire transistors with up to four independently controllable wrap-gated segments. While the step up to two independent wrap-gates requires a major change in fabrication methodology, a key advantage to this new approach, and the horizontal orientation more generally, is that achieving more than two wrap-gate segments then requires no extra fabrication steps. This is in contrast to the vertical orientation, where a significant subset of the fabrication steps needs to be repeated for each additional gate. We show that cross-talk between adjacent wrap-gate segments is negligible despite separations less than 200 nm. We also demonstrate the ability to make multiple wrap-gate transistors on a single nanowire using the exact same process. The excellent scalability potential of horizontal wrap-gate nanowire transistors makes them highly favorable for the development of advanced nanowire devices and possible integration with vertical wrap-gate nanowire transistors in 3D nanowire network architectures.

Electron-Beam Patterning of Polymer Electrolyte Films To Make Multiple Nanoscale Gates for Nanowire Transistors

We report an electron-beam based method for the nanoscale patterning of the poly(ethylene oxide)/LiClO4 polymer electrolyte. We use the patterned polymer electrolyte as a high capacitance gate dielectric in single nanowire transistors and obtain subthreshold swings comparable to conventional metal/oxide wrap-gated nanowire transistors. Patterning eliminates gate/contact overlap, which reduces parasitic effects and enables multiple, independently controllable gates. The methods simplicity broadens the scope for using polymer electrolyte gating in studies of nanowires and other nanoscale devices.

Resistively detected nuclear magnetic resonance in n- and p-type GaAs quantum point contacts.

We present resistively detected NMR measurements in induced and modulation-doped electron quantum point contacts, as well as induced hole quantum point contacts. While the magnitude of the resistance change and associated NMR peaks in n-type devices is in line with other recent measurements using this technique, the effect in p-type devices is too small to measure. This suggests that the hyperfine coupling between holes and nuclei in this type of device is much smaller than the electron hyperfine coupling, which could have implications in quantum information processing.

Nonlinear thermoelectric response due to energy-dependent transport properties of a quantum dot

Quantum dots are useful model systems for studying quantum thermoelectric behavior because of their highly energy-dependent electron transport properties, which are tunable by electrostatic gating. As a result of this strong energy dependence, the thermoelectric response of quantum dots is expected to be nonlinear with respect to an applied thermal bias. However, until now this effect has been challenging to observe because, first, it is experimentally difficult to apply a sufficiently large thermal bias at the nanoscale and, second, it is difficult to distinguish thermal bias effects from purely temperature-dependent effects due to overall heating of a device. Here we take advantage of a novel thermal biasing technique and demonstrate a nonlinear thermoelectric response in a quantum dot which is defined in a heterostructured semiconductor nanowire. We also show that a theoretical model based on the Master equations fully explains the observed nonlinear thermoelectric response given the energy-dependent transport properties of the quantum dot.

Extreme sensitivity of the spin-splitting and 0.7 anomaly to confining potential in one-dimensional nanoelectronic devices.

Quantum point contacts (QPCs) have shown promise as nanoscale spin-selective components for spintronic applications and are of fundamental interest in the study of electron many-body effects such as the 0.7 × 2e(2)/h anomaly. We report on the dependence of the 1D Landé g-factor g and 0.7 anomaly on electron density and confinement in QPCs with two different top-gate architectures. We obtain g values up to 2.8 for the lowest 1D subband, significantly exceeding previous in-plane g-factor values in AlGaAs/GaAs QPCs and approaching that in InGaAs/InP QPCs. We show that g is highly sensitive to confinement potential, particularly for the lowest 1D subband. This suggests careful management of the QPCs confinement potential may enable the high g desirable for spintronic applications without resorting to narrow-gap materials such as InAs or InSb. The 0.7 anomaly and zero-bias peak are also highly sensitive to confining potential, explaining the conflicting density dependencies of the 0.7 anomaly in the literature.

Hybrid Nanowire Ion-to-Electron Transducers for Integrated Bioelectronic Circuitry

A key task in the emerging field of bioelectronics is the transduction between ionic/protonic and electronic signals at high fidelity. This is a considerable challenge since the two carrier types exhibit intrinsically different physics and are best supported by very different materials types-electronic signals in inorganic semiconductors and ionic/protonic signals in organic or bio-organic polymers, gels, or electrolytes. Here we demonstrate a new class of organic-inorganic transducing interface featuring semiconducting nanowires electrostatically gated using a solid proton-transporting hygroscopic polymer. This model platform allows us to study the basic transducing mechanisms as well as deliver high fidelity signal conversion by tapping into and drawing together the best candidates from traditionally disparate realms of electronic materials research. By combining complementary n- and p-type transducers we demonstrate functional logic with significant potential for scaling toward high-density integrated bioelectronic circuitry.

A quantum-dot heat engine operating close to the thermodynamic efficiency limits

Cyclical heat engines are a paradigm of classical thermodynamics, but are impractical for miniaturization because they rely on moving parts. A more recent concept is particle-exchange (PE) heat engines, which uses energy filtering to control a thermally driven particle flow between two heat reservoirs1,2. As they do not require moving parts and can be realized in solid-state materials, they are suitable for low-power applications and miniaturization. It was predicted that PE engines could reach the same thermodynamically ideal efficiency limits as those accessible to cyclical engines3–6, but this prediction has not been verified experimentally. Here, we demonstrate a PE heat engine based on a quantum dot (QD) embedded into a semiconductor nanowire. We directly measure the engine’s steady-state electric power output and combine it with the calculated electronic heat flow to determine the electronic efficiency η. We find that at the maximum power conditions, η is in agreement with the Curzon–Ahlborn efficiency6–9 and that the overall maximum η is in excess of 70% of the Carnot efficiency while maintaining a finite power output. Our results demonstrate that thermoelectric power conversion can, in principle, be achieved close to the thermodynamic limits, with direct relevance for future hot-carrier photovoltaics10, on-chip coolers or energy harvesters for quantum technologies.Direct thermal-to-electric energy conversion can be performed at electronic efficiencies comparable to efficiencies of traditional cyclical heat engines.

Electronic comparison of InAs wurtzite and zincblende phases using nanowire transistors

We compare the electronic characteristics of nanowire field-effect transistors made using single pure wurtzite and pure zincblende InAs nanowires grown from identical catalyst particles. We compare the transfer characteristics and field-effect mobility versus temperature for these devices to better understand how differences in InAs phase govern the electronic properties of nanowire transistors.

Thermoelectric Power Factor Limit of a 1D Nanowire

In the past decade, there has been significant interest in the potentially advantageous thermoelectric properties of one-dimensional (1D) nanowires, but it has been challenging to find high thermoelectric power factors based on 1D effects in practice. Here we point out that there is an upper limit to the thermoelectric power factor of nonballistic 1D nanowires, as a consequence of the recently established quantum bound of thermoelectric power output. We experimentally test this limit in quasiballistic InAs nanowires by extracting the maximum power factor of the first 1D subband through I-V characterization, finding that the measured maximum power factors conform to the theoretical limit. The established limit allows the prediction of the achievable power factor of a specific nanowire material system with 1D electronic transport based on the nanowire dimension and mean free path. The power factor of state-of-the-art semiconductor nanowires with small cross section and high crystal quality can be expected to be highly competitive (on the order of mW/m K^{2}) at low temperatures. However, they have no clear advantage over bulk materials at, or above, room temperature.

How InAs crystal phase affects the electrical performance of InAs nanowire FETs

We have studied the electronic transport characteristics of nanowire field effect transistors (NWFETs) made from phase-pure wurtzite (WZ) and zinc blende (ZB) InAs nanowires (NWs). The electronic characteristics were obtained at temperatures between 4 and 300 K. The ZB NWFETs exhibited a greater sensitivity to the surrounding atmosphere than WZ NWFETs. The WZ NWFETs had a higher mobility than ZB NWFETs at a given temperature. We also found that WZ NWs had a higher carrier density than ZB NWs at most temperatures, presumably due to differences in carbon incorporation during growth.