Nanoelectronics: It Takes Two

A new type of nanowire that can be fabricated using conventional manufacturing techniques has been reported by researchers from the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics and the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering in collaboration with colleagues from the National University of Singapore. The key to their success is a core/shell structure in which a silicon-germanium core is sheathed by a silicon outer layer to form the nanowire.

The research team showed that the composite nanowires perform better in transistor structures than silicon alone. Silicon and germanium combined have better charge-carrier mobility than silicon, although the many charge-carrier traps that form at the interfaces between the different materials in silicon–germanium transistors have previously made it difficult to exploit this advantage. To avoid this problem, the researchers added an outer coating of silicon to the nanowires .

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