RESONANT TUNNELING VIA MICROCRYSTALLINE-SILICON QUANTUM CONFINEMENT

Resonant tunneling involving discrete quantum states in microcrystalline-Si (mu-c-Si) with alpha-SiO2 barriers is observed experimentally. The low interface trap densities, and the high barrier height between Si and alpha-SiO2, allow the observation of several aspects in the physics of quantum confinement. Even for extreme quantum confinement at low gate bias, applied to the Al/alpha-SiO2/mu-c-Si/alpha-SiO2/c-Si structure, the effects of quantized charge accumulation dominate over the wider separation of the energy levels of the quantum box. At high gate bias, we observe a transition from a three dimensionally to a one dimensionally confined system.