Skip to content

Enhanced tunneling across nanometer-scale metal-semiconductor interfaces

G. D. J. Smit, S. Rogge, T. M. Klapwijk

cond-matarXiv:cond-mat/0110256

Abstract

We have measured electrical transport across epitaxial, nanometer-sized metal-semiconductor interfaces by contacting CoSi2-islands grown on Si(111) with an STM-tip. The conductance per unit area was found to increase with decreasing diode area. Indeed, the zero-bias conductance was found to be about 104 times larger than expected from downscaling a conventional diode. These observations are explained by a model, which predicts a narrower barrier for small diodes and therefore a greatly increased contribution of tunneling to the electrical transport.

Create a lesson