The Ballistic Electron Emission Microscopy in the Characterization of Quantum Dots

Abstract

Ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM) is a new method by apply the spatial resolution capabilities of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to investigate electron transport properties in the quantum dots. This method requires three terminals: a sharp tip to inject electrons, a conductive layer and a semiconductor substrate. The transport-related properties of the sample can be obtained by using the characteristic of the injected and collected electrons. In this paper proposed a BEEM model for the silicon quantum dots (Si-QDs) on SiO2 layer prepared by LPCVD technique. SiO2 layer was thermally grown on p-type Si (100) wafer in dry O2 atmosphere and a thin gold layer cap used to provide a conductive layer on top of the Si-QDs for the BEEM characterization.