Nanoscale refractory doped titanium nitride field emitters.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology
• Solid State Physics

Background:

• Refractory materials offer high damage tolerance for nanoscale electronics.
• Titanium nitride's optical properties are tunable with silicon and oxygen doping.
• CMOS-compatible fabrication is crucial for advanced optoelectronics.

Purpose of the Study:

• Develop a precise fabrication process for titanium silicon oxynitride nanostructures.
• Create large-scale arrays of nanoantennas with few-nanometer gaps.
• Evaluate the electronic and optoelectronic performance and stability of these nanostructures.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of nanostructures with controlled gaps (10-15 nm) and high aspect ratios.
• Creation of electrically-connected bow-tie nanoantenna arrays.
• Testing of electronic (tunneling) and optoelectronic (quantum efficiency) properties under operational conditions.

Main Results:

• Achieved fabrication precision with typical 4 nm gap variation.
• Demonstrated sub-10 V tunneling operation.
• Observed quantum efficiency up to 1e-3 at 1.2 μm, outperforming gold devices.
• Confirmed material stability with <5 nm gap shrinkage after 10 hours of operation.

Conclusions:

• The developed fabrication process enables robust, CMOS-compatible titanium silicon oxynitride nanostructures.
• These nanostructures show promising performance for high-speed, low-power field-emission electronics and optoelectronics.
• The material's durability and tunable properties pave the way for next-generation nanoscale devices.