Electrical Width Determination of Silicon Nanowires Prepared by Using the Top-Down Method

High-aspect-ratio nanowires of various widths and lengths (105 nm similar to 20 mu m and 2 similar to 20 mu m, respectively), but of fixed thickness (40 nm), were prepared by using the top-down method, and their resistances were measured in the two-terminal configuration. By taking into account the series resistance corresponding to the trapezoidal section of the channel connecting a nanowire to a wider electrode region, we obtained a sheet resistance and a source/drain resistance of 16.81 and 11.17 k Omega, respectively, in a consistent manner. We also determined the effective electrical widths, which are different from the physical widths by as much as 40 nm for a 105-nm-wide nanowire, and found a linear dependence of the surface depletion layer's thickness at the side walls on their physical width, which was attributed to structural damage that occurred during the plasma etch process.The author acknowledges the Nano-Bio Electronic Devices Team of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea, for providing nanowire devices and helpful discussions and Mr. H. W. Cho and Ms. X. H. Li for collecting data. This work was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University (HY2009-G)