Multifunctional devices and logic gates with undoped silicon nanowires

We report on the electronic transport properties of multiple-gate devices fabricated from undoped silicon nanowires. Understanding and control of the relevant transport mechanisms was achieved by means of local electrostatic gating and temperature-dependent measurements. The roles of the source/drain contacts and of the silicon channel could be independently evaluated and tuned. Wrap gates surrounding the silicide-silicon contact interfaces were proved to be effective in inducing a full suppression of the contact Schottky barriers, thereby enabling carrier injection down to liquid helium temperature. By independently tuning the effective Schottky barrier heights, a variety of reconfigurable device functionalities could be obtained. In particular, the same nanowire device could be configured to work as a Schottky barrier transistor, a Schottky diode, or a p-n diode with tunable polarities. This versatility was eventually exploited to realize a NAND logic gate with gain well above one.