Encoding electronic properties by synthesis of axial modulation-doped silicon nanowires

We describe the successful synthesis of modulation-doped silicon nanowires by achieving pure axial elongation without radial overcoating during the growth process. Scanning gate microscopy shows that the key properties of the modulated structures-including the number, size, and period of the differentially doped regions-are defined in a controllable manner during synthesis, and moreover, that feature sizes to less than 50 nanometers are possible. Electronic devices fabricated with designed modulation-doped nanowire structures demonstrate their potential for lithography-independent address decoders and tunable, coupled quantum dots in which changes in electronic properties are encoded by synthesis rather than created by conventional lithography-based techniques.