Controlled Coupling and Occupation

of Silicon Atomic Quantum Dots

At room temperature

M. Baseer Haider, Jason L Pitters, Gino A. DiLabio,

Lucian Livadaru, Josh Y Mutus, Robert A. Wolkow
NINT Scientists
 Gino DiLabio
 Jason Pitters
NINT Scientist dedicated to commercialization ventures
 Stas Dogel
NINT Instrument design Engineer
 Mark Salomons
Technician
 Martin Cloutier
Postdocs
 Baseer Haider
 Lucian Livadaru
 Radovan Urban
 Peter Ryan
 Paul Piva
Students
 Manuel Smeu, Co-supervised with Hong Guo/McGill
 Janik Zikovsky
 Shoma Sinha
 Cristian Vesa
 Marco Taucer
Single, small ensembles, and large
arrays of Dangling Bonds are
wonderful – let’s discuss small
groups of Si DBs today
Si (100)-H, 2x1

2.25 Å

3.84 Å

7.68 Å
STM DB (Dangling Bond) Creation

H H H H H H H
H H H H H H H

H H H H H H H
H H H H H H H
 10 nm

Just a demo
But interesting in itself
Can for example decorate each point with a molecule
Or with a metal atom
 35x35 nm, 2V, 0.1nA 35x35 nm, 2.2 V, 0.1nA

Neutral DBs Negative DBs

Low doped n-type Silicon High doped n-type Silicon

One electron per DB Two electrons per DB

e- tip
CB
CB tip
EF 1 e- EF
= neutral 2 e-
VB = 1 neg
VB
charge
 e

-1.6 V
4 -1.8 V
-2.4 V
3
Height (Å)

1
Distance (Å)
0
-20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Field regulation of single-molecule conductivity by a charged surface atom
Paul G. Piva, Gino A. DiLabio, Jason L. Pitters, Janik Zikovsky, Moh’d Rezeq,
Stanislav Dogel, Werner A. Hofer & Robert A. Wolkow
Nature 435, 658-61 (2005)

Lopinski, Wayner, and Wolkow, Nature 406, 48 (2000)

 Pitters, J. L.; Piva, P. G.; Tong, X.;
N

O
Wolkow, R. A., Nano Lett.;3, 1431-1435
(2003).
Pitters, J. L. & Wolkow, R. A., J. Am.
Chem. Soc. 127, 48–-49 (2005).
N

H H
O
H H H H H
Si Si Si H H H
Si Si Si Si Si
Si Si Si Si Si
Si Si Si Si Si Si
Si Si Si
Si Si Si Si Si Si

Dangling bond capping => Charge elimination and

therefore Field elimination
Also single molecule sensing
4

Height (Å)
2

-20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Distance (Å )
• All that was an aside

• Showing Dangling Bond (DB) as a point

charge

• Returning now to interactions among DBs

 1e- 1e-

NEW
DB3
DB1 DB1

1e- 1e-
DB2 DB2
Not 2e-

10x10nm, 2V, 0.2nA DB distance is 8.2Å

 Coulombic repulsion limits filling of DB’s
Coupled DB’s are “self-biased”

Unfavourable
CBM

Vel/2

E0
E0  t U/2

R12  R12 
4d

VBM
(a) (b)
Rare tunneling
Very High
Tunnel Rate
 Distance dependent coupling

15.6 Å
II
III II I
1.2 2e-
1.0

Probability
0.8
0.6
III 0.4
0.2
0.0
1e-
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
DB separation[Å]

11.5 Å
23.2 Å I
Bandwidth of amplifier is ~5kHz.
 Charging state probabilities for a 4DB cell

6x6 nm, 2V, 0.08 nA

Room temp

Low temp
6x6 nm, 2V, 0.08 nA
 Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata
High Density
Low power consumption

Patterned Q-dot clusters using

e-beam lithography prepared samples
Typically ~10 nm clusters spaced by tens of nm

Operated at mK temperatures and local electrosta

tuning in order to achieve the appropriate filling.
wire
majority gate
fanout

inverter

Lent, C. S.,Tougaw, P. D., Porod, W. & Bernstein, G. H. Nanotechnology 4, 49-57, (1993).

 Tilting the potential
Unfavourable Vpert
CBM

Vel/2

E0
E0  t U/2

R12 

R12 4d

VBM
(a) (b) (c)

This creates a situation where the forward

and reverse tunnel rates are not equivalent
 An H-terminated Silicon surface

~ 3 nm
A 3rd DB acts as an
A 2ndelectrostatic
dangling bond
Watch:
perturbationbe– it
Symmetry breaking
Watch: OneisHabout
atom to
removed
shifts charge in pre-
created
will
Thisoccur when a 3rd
DB will with STM tip
existing coupled pair
DB addedwhen a
brighten
nearby DB added the pre-existing and
Thethe This
newisDB
resulting single
silicon
are
lighterelectron
“dangling state
bond”
in appearanceis
control
negatively
– evidencecharged
of
with one of
rejection electron
charge
The Si DBs are
atomic quantum
The empty
Resulting localdots
instate
allowslevel
energy electron
shifts,
The grouping
tunneling as
manifest betweenis an
a dark
artificial
the two in
feature molecule
atoms!
STM
These entities are small

.
play fun movie QCA/computer
• though enmeshed in silicon lattice, single Si atoms can
stand out to act as quantum dots (remarkably like a
dopant)
• Ultimate small dot –> wide level spacing -> Room
Temperature
• Qdots are identical
• multiple dots can be tunnel coupled
• electron filling is geometry controlled - “self-biased”
• can electrostatically control electronic configuration
• immune to stray charge (beyond ~3 nm)
• QCA cells have been electrostatically set in one binary
state – not yet dynamically
• 2 coupled dots are candidate charged qubit
• PRL 102, 46805 (2009)
the end