Turn-on speed is the main concern for on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection device, especially in deep submicron complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS) processes with ultra-thin gate oxide. A novel dummy-gate-blocking silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) device with substrate-triggered technique is proposed to improve the turn-on speed of SCR device for using in on-chip ESD pr...

A new type of electrometer is described that uses a single-electron transistor (SET) and that allows large operating speeds and extremely high charge sensitivity. The SET readout was accomplished by measuring the damping of a 1.7-gigahertz resonant circuit in which the device is embedded, and in some ways is the electrostatic "dual" of the well-known radio-frequency superconducting quantum inte...

Energy harvesting is attractive for powering wireless sensors, especially in applications such as body sensor networks and pervasive sensing, where power source replacement or recharging is impractical. A MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) electrostatic harvesting device suitable for body motion has been reported previously, using a rolling rod as the proof mass. A new rolling rod device i...

Measurements are presented of a device designed to cool a 6 microm;{2} region of 2D electron gas using quantum dots. Electrostatic effects are found to be significant in the device, and a model that accounts for them is developed. At ambient electron temperatures above 120 mK the results are consistent with the model and the base temperature of the cooled region is estimated. At an ambient elec...

The experimental characterization of gate capacitance in nanoscale devices is challenging. We report an application of the charge-based capacitance measurement (CBCM) technique to measure the gate capacitance of a single-channel nanowire transistor. The measurement results are validated by 3-D electrostatic computations for parasitic estimation and 2-D self-consistent sp3s∗d tight-binding compu...

This paper presents an overview on recent topical studies on electronic properties and device applications of nanocrystalline silicon (nc-Si) quantum dots. We first discuss the electrostatic and quantum-mechanical coherent interactions observed for strongly-coupled double Si nanodots. Secondly we analyze the phononic states and electron-phonon interactions theoretically for the linear chain of ...

Temperature dependencies of the threshold current, device slope efficiency, and heterobarrier electron leakage current from the active region of InGaAsP–InP multiquantum-well (MQW) lasers with different profiles of acceptor doping were measured. We demonstrate that the temperature sensitivity of the device characteristics depends on the profile of p-doping, and that the variance in the temperat...

We present a theoretical framework for the calculation of charge transport through nanowire-based Schottky-barrier field-effect transistors that is conceptually simple but still captures the relevant physical mechanisms of the transport process. Our approach combines two approaches on different length scales: (1) the finite element method is used to model realistic device geometries and to calc...

A Hybrid Hall effect device utilizes the magnetic fringing field at the edge of a ferromagnet to produce Hall effect in the two dimensional electron gas confined in a semiconductor structure underneath the magnet. Addition of an electrostatic gate to this passive device provides an extra handle in the form of the gate bias to modulate the output Hall voltage. We demonstrated that silicon MOSFET...

A device is described and mathematically analyzed which creates electrostatic multipole potentials at least up to rank 3 in a 2 cm diam spherical region. The fields in the Stark ball are produced by the application of programmed voltages to 24 conducting rods that are inserted symmetrically in an empty 5 cm conducting cavity. Three mutually orthogonal unobstructed paths through the center of th...