Quantum engineering at the silicon surface using dangling bonds

Quantum engineering at the silicon surface using dangling bonds

Individual atoms and ions are now routinely manipulated using scanning tunnelling microscopes or electromagnetic traps for the creation and control of artificial quantum states. For applications such as quantum information processing, the ability to introduce multiple atomic-scale defects deterministically in a semiconductor is highly desirable. Here we use a scanning tunnelling microscope to f...

Electronic structure of dangling and floating bonds in amorphous silicon.

Interaction of silicon dangling bonds with insulating surfaces.

We use first principles density functional theory calculations to study the interaction of a model dangling bond silicon tip with the surfaces of CaF2, Al2O3, TiO2, and MgO. In each case the strongest interaction is with the highest anions in the surface. We show that this is due to the onset of chemical bonding with the surface anions, which can be controlled by an electric field across the sy...

Theoretical study of isolated dangling bonds, dangling bond wires, and dangling bond clusters on a H : Si(001)-(2x1) surface

Microscopic mechanisms for creation and removal of metastable dangling bonds in hydrogenated amorphous silicon

We present a microscopic model for metastable Si dangling-bond defect creation in hydrogenated amorphous silicon, which is applicable to both light-induced defect creation in solar cells ~Staebler-Wronski effect! and bias-stress-induced defect creation in thin-film transistors. Light or gate bias causes electron-hole pairs or electrons, respectively, to be localized on short, weak Si-Si bonds, ...