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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my profound thanks to The Almighty, without whose grace I could not have completed this work. I would like to thank Head of the department of Electronics & communication Engg, for the support during the course of seminar study. I extend my special thanks to Mr. DINESH BABU M, Mr. RISHIDAS, Mr. B.S SHAJEE MOHAN Asst. professors, Department of Electronics & communication Engg., and all other tutors for their all around support. Last but not least, I express my special thanks to family members especially parents and friends, who stood with me during tough times and encouraged me.

SREEJISHA. P.P

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics

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ABSTRACT
The study of the ac properties of nano-electronic system is still in its infancy. In this paper I present an overview of recent work aimed at advancing the understanding of this new field. Specifically, First discuss the passive RF circuit model of one dimensional nanostructure as interconnects. Next, discuss circuit models of the ac performance of active 1d transistor structures, leading to the prediction that THz cutoff frequencies should be possible. Third, I discuss the radiation properties of 1d wires, which could form antennas linking the nanoworld to the macroworld.This could completely remove the requirements for lithographically defined contacts to nanotube and nanowires devices, one of the greatest unsolved problems in nanotechnology.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics 1 2

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CONTENTS
Introduction Nanotube interconnects: Quantum Impedances 2.1 Electrostatic capacitance 2.2 Quantum capacitance 2.3 Kinetic inductance 2.4 Band structure, spin degeneracy Active Devices: Nanotube Transistors Relevant frequency scales 4.1 RC time 4.2 Transconductance Small- signal equivalent circuit 5.1 Gate-source capacitance 5.2 Transconductance 5.3 Drain resistance 5.4 Series resistance 5.5 Parasitic capacitance Cutoff frequency 6.1 Parasitic capacitance 6.2 Scaling with gate length Nanoantennas 7.1 Applications of Nanotube Antennas Noise Performance Challenges Conclusion References 1 2 3 3 4 5 6 6 6 7 8 8 8 8 8-9 9 11 11 11-12 14 14 17 18 19 20

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Chapter 1

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INTRODUCTION

Nano-electronic devices fall into two classes: tunnel devices, and ballistic transport devices. In tunnel devices, single electron effects occur if the tunnel resistance is larger than h=e2 _ 25 kX. In ballistic devices with cross-sectional dimensions of order the quantum mechanical wavelength of electrons, the resistance is of order h=e2 _ 25 kX. At .rst glance, these high resistance values may seem to restrict the operational speed of nanoelectronics in general. However, the capacitance for these devices is also generally small, as is the typical sourcedrain spacing. This gives rise to very small RC times, and very short transit times, of order ps or less. Thus, the speed limit may be very large, up to the THz range. In this paper we take a more careful look at the general arguments for the speed limits of nanoelectronic devices. We find that the coupling to the outside world will usually be slow or narrowband, but that the coupling to other nano-electronic devices can be extremely fast. A more concrete goal of this paper is to present models and performance predictions about the e.ects that set the speed limit in carbon nanotube transistors, which form an ideal test-bed for understanding the highfrequency properties of nano-electronics because they may behave as ideal ballistic 1d transistors.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Chapter 2

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NANOTUBE INTERCONNECTS: QUANTUM IMPEDANCES

The first step towards understanding the high frequency electronic properties of carbon nanotubes is to understand the passive, ac impedance of a 1d quantum system. So proposed an effective circuit model for the ac impedance of a carbon nanotube This model was formulated for metallic nanotubes, it should be approximately correct for semiconducting nanotube as well.

Figure 2.1 Nanotube over ground plane, used for electromagnetic calculations

In the presence of a ground plane below the nanotube or top gate above the nanotube, there is electrostatic capacitancebetween the nanotube and the metal. Due to the quantum properties of the system, however, there are additional components to the ac impedance: the quantum capacitance and the kinetic inductance. Thus, the equivalent circuit of a nanotube consists of three distributed circuit elements.

Figure 2.2 Equivalent RF circuit model for a nanotube Dept. of ECE Kannur 2 GCE

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2.1 Electrostatic capacitance

The electrostatic capacitance between a wire and a ground plane is given by

CE=2/cosh-1(2h/d)
Where the approximation is good to within 1% for h>2d. If the distance to ground plane becomes larger than the tube length another formula for the capacitance has to be used, which involves replacing h with the length of the wire. For a typical value of h/d, this can be approximated numerically as

CE 50aF/m
2.2 Quantum capacitance Because of the finite quantum energy level spacing of electrons in 1d, it costs energy to add an electron to the system. By equating this energy cost with an effective quantum capacitance e2/CQ , one arrives at the following expression for the capacitance per unit length:

CQ=e2/vF
Where his planks constant and vF is the Fermi energy. The Fermi velocity for graphene and also carbon nanotube is usually taken as 8*105 m/s.so that numerically,

CQ 100aF/ m
2.3 Kinetic inductance Due to the inertia of electrons, the instantaneous velocity lags the instantaneous electric field in time. This means the current lags the phase, which can be described as a kinetic inductance. For 1d system we have the following expression for the kinetic energy per unit length:

LK=/e2vF

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Numerically,

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LK=16nH/ m
This shows that in 1d system, the kinetic inductance will always dominate magnetic inductance. This is an important point for engineering nanoelectronics: In engineering macroscopic circuits, long thin wires are usually considered to have relatively large magnetic inductance. This is not the case in nanowires, where the kinetic inductance dominates. This inductance can in principle be used as a part of a tank circuit for on-chip, GHz passive signal processing components, currently under development. 2.4 Band structure, spin degeneracy A carbon nanotube, because of its band structure, has two propagating channels .In addition the electrons can be spin up or spin down. Hence there are four channels. The above circuit model is still valid as an effective circuit model for the charged mode if LK is replaced by LK/4 and CQ is replaced by 4CQ. Thus the ac impedance of a nanotube consists of significant capacitive and inductive elements in addition to the real resistance which must be considered in any future nano-electronics system architecture.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Chapter 3

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ACTIVE DEVICES: NANOTUBE TRANSISTORS

Typical nanotube transistor geometry is shown below

Figure 3.1 Typical nanotube transistor geometry

In contrast to silicon transistors, the fundamental physical mechanism responsible for transistor action in nanotube transistor is still not completely understood. One action of the gate may be to modulate the (schottky barrier) contact resistance. Experiments also indicate that the source drain voltage drops at least in part along the length of the nanotube, indicating that the contact s only one important element of the total sourcedrain resistance.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Chapter 4

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RELEVANT FREQUENCY SCALES

We begin by estimating the frequency scales for the most important processes: the RC time and the transconductance.

4.1 RC time The first important effect for high frequency performance is the RC time. For typical nanotube geometry of 0.1m length is of order 4Af. R can be as small as 6.25k.Therfore; the RC frequency is given by

1/2RC 6.3THz
This shows that the speed limit due to RC times intrinsic to a nanotube transistor is very large indeed.

4.2 Transconductance The conductance gm over the gate-source capacitance Cgs sets another important frequency. Using an experimentally measured value of 10S, this gives

gm/2Cgs 400GHz

The above estimate indicates that a carbon nanotube transistor could be very fast, in spite of its high impedance. For more realistic estimate of device performance a small signal equivalent circuit model would be very useful, especially for input and output impedance calculations and in order to investigate the effects of parasitic impedance on device performance.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Chapter 5

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SMALL- SIGNAL EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT

In this section, propose a small signal equivalent circuit model based on known physics in the small signal limit a generally common behavior for all field effect type devices. Our proposed active circuit model is not rigorously justified or derived. But we can capture essential physics of device operation and at the same time provide simple estimates of device performance.

Figure 5.1 Proposed small signal equivalent circuit model for transistor geometry. Here shows the predicted small signal circuit model or a nanotube transistor. In the following section discuss each of the important components.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics 5.1 Gate-source capacitance

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The capacitance of a passive nanotube in the presence of a gate was discussed extensively in the first section; this can be used as an estimate of the gate-source capacitance Cgs in active mode; shown above. This capacitance includes the geometrical capacitance (50Af/m) in series with the quantum capacitance; the quantum capacitance is multiplied by 4 because of the band structure degeneracy. Thus:

1/Cgs 1/ CE+1/4 CQ=1/44 aF/ m

5.2 Transconductance While the transconductance is the most critical parameter, the underlying mechanism is the least understood. In order to predict device high frequency performance, we use experimental data from dc measurements as our guide. We show in table1 data from various research groups measured to date.Transconductance up to 20s have been measured [12], using an aqueous gate geometry. A transconductance of 60s was recently predicted [13, 14] by simulation. 5.3 Drain resistance In the equivalent circuit model gd represents the output impedance of the device, if it does not appear as an ideal current source. In table 1 (from Refs [9, 11-13, 15-18]), we present some representative values from the literature which we have determined from the published source-drain I-V curves. 5.4 Series resistance In most conventional transistors the series resistance of the metallization layer and the ohmic contact resistance. We argue that, in nanotube transistors, the intrinsic contact resistance will be of order the resistance quantum because of the 1d nature of the system. At dc, the lowest value of resistance possible for a carbon nanotube is h/4e2 . This is because there are four channels for conductance in the Landauer-Buttiker formalism, each contributing h/e2 to the conductance. To date very little experiment work has been Dept. of ECE Kannur 8 GCE

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one to measure the ac impedance of ballistic system. From a theoretical point of view scientists have carefully analyzed the case of capacitive contact to a ballistic conductor in contact with one dc electrical lead through a quantum point contact. They find that the ac impedance from gate to lead includes a real part, equal to half the resistance quantum h/2e2 . Based on this work argue that a reasonable value for the contact resistance in our small-signal model would be h/2e2 per channel. Since there are four channels in parallel, this gives a contact resistance of h/8e2 . There will be an additional imaginary contribution to the contact impedance due to the kinetic inductance on the order of a few nano henry. 5.5 Parasitic capacitance The parasitic capacitance is due to the fringing electric fields between the electrodes for the source, drain and gate. While these parasitic capacitance are generally small, they may be comparable to the intrinsic device capacitance and hence must be considered. There are no closed form analytical predictions because the geometry of the electrodes will vary among different electrodes designs. In order to estimate the order of magnitude of the parasitic capacitance, we can use known calculation for the capacitance between two thin metal films, spaced by a distance w, as shown in below figure.

Figure 5.2 Typical geometry giving rise to parasitic capacitors

For this geometry, if w is 1m the capacitance is 10-16 F/m of electrode length .For a length of 1m, this gives rise to 10-16 F. Thus, typical parasitic capacitances are of the same order of magnitude as typical intrinsic capacitance.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Chapter 6

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CUT-OFF FREQUENCY
This section provides estimates of the cutoff frequency fT , a standard yardstick for transistor high speed performance, defined as the frequency at which the current gain falls to unity. Based on the circuit model in figure 4 it can be shown that fT is given by:

1/2fT=(RS+RD)Cgd,p+1/gm(Cgs+ Cgd,p+ Cgd,p)+gd/ gm(RS+RD)( Cgs+ Cgd,p+ Cgd,p)

Here the p subscript denotes parasitic .Using the experimentally measured

transconductance of 10s, a parasitic capacitance value of 10-16 F, and a Cgs of 4*10-17 F predict a cutoff frequency of 8GHz. For this value, the parasitic capacitance is the most important contribution. Thus, minimizing the parasitic capacitance is of prime importance in increasing fT for nanotube transistors. 6.1 Parasitic capacitance While the above calculation show that the parasitic capacitance is important, in principle it should be possible to significantly reduce the parasitic capacitance by detailed electrode geometry design. Another way to reduce the parasitic capacitance would be to use the nanotube itself as an interconnect electrode from one nanotube transistor to another. Then, the parasitic capacitance would be dramatically smaller than that with lithographically fabricated electrodes. 6.2 Scaling with gate length If we assume the parasitic capacitance can be reduced to negligible values the above equation simplifies to

1/2fT=Cgs/ gm
Cgs scales linearly with gate length, and was calculated above. In the ballistic limit, gm should be independent of gate length. Using the largest measured transconductance to date of 20s; this gives rise to the following prediction for fT:

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fT=80GHz/Lgate(m)
We plot in FIG 6. Our predictions for fT vs. gate length for a nanotube transistor, and compare to other technologies. The predictions are very promising, suggesting that a nanotube transistor with THz cutoff frequencies should be possible.

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Figure 6.1 Predicted scaling of fT with gate length

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics Chapter 7

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NANOANTENNAS
Since the wavelength of microwaves of order cm, and since we have recently been able to synthesize electrically continuous and electrically contacted single- walled nanotubes of order cm in length, it I appropriate to consider their possible use as nanoantennas.In this spirit we recently developed a quantitative theory of nanowires and nanotubes as antennas. Below, we elaborate on potential applications of these nanoantennas 7.1 Applications of Nanotube Antennas 7.1.1 A solution to the nanointerconnect problem Progress to date on nanoelectronics has been significant. Essentially all devices needed to make the equivalent of a modern digital or analog circuit out of nanotubes and/or nanowires have been demonstrated in prototype experiments and elementary logic circuits have been demonstrated .However, one of the most important unsolved problem in nanotechnology is how to make electrical contact from nanoelectronic devices to the macroscopic world, without giving up on the potential circuit density achievable with nanoelectronics. All of the nanotube and nanowire devices developed to date have been contacted by lithographically fabricated electrodes. A canonical research theme is to fabricate a nanodevice, contact it with electrodes fabricated with electron beam lithography, then publish a paper reporting the electrical properties. This is not a scalable technique for massively parallel processing, integrated nanosystems. The potential high density circuitry possible with nanowires and nanotubes will not be realized if each nanowire and nanotube is connected lithographically. One potential solution to this problem is to use wireless interconnects, which can be densely packed. If each interconnect is connected to a nanotube of a different length (hence different resonant frequency), then the problem of multiplexing input/output signals can be translated from the spatial domain to the frequency domain, hence relaxing the need for high resolution (high host) lithography for interconnects. This is in contrast

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to previous approaches which ultimately rely on lithography and its inherent limitations to make electrical contact to nanosystem.This idea is indicated schematically in Fig 7

Figure 7.1 Possible architecture for a non-lithographic, wireless connection from the nanoworld to the macroworld. 7.1.2 Wireless interconnect to nano-sensors Another application is in the area of sensing. For example, nano-devices could be use as chemical and biological sensors, sensitive to their local chemical environment. A nanotube could be used as an antenna to couple to these nano-sensors, without the need for lithographically fabricated electronics.

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Seminar Report 2007-08 Nanoelectronics 7.1.3 Unsolved problems in nano-antennas:

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Transition from nano-antenna to thin- wire antenna. Our recent theory applies only to quantum mechanically 1-d nanowires and nanotubes. A future problem, which has not been solved yet, is to determine the transition from nano-antenna behavior to thin wire behaviour.This problem is germane to, for example multi walled nanotubes and also nanowires not in the strict 1d limit. Additionally it may shed light on loss mechanism in thin metallic antennas whose size approaches the nano-domain.

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NOISE PERFORMANCE: TOWARDS THE QUANTUM LIMIT?

One promising potential application is in low noise analog microwave amplification circuits. Recent work on noise in mesoscopic system has been extensive and has shown suppressed noise due to the Pauli exclusions principle, since electrons can travel without scattering from source to drain, and the Pauli exclusions principle suppresses the current noise, it may be possible to engineer extremely low noise microwave amplifiers using carbon nanotubes, possibly even approaching the quantum limit of sensitivity.

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CHALLENGES: IMPEDANCE MATCHING

Nano-devices generally have high resistance values, of order the resistance quantum RQ =h/e2. At high frequencies, for driving circuits more the one electromagnetic wavelength away from the device, the load impedance is typically of order the characteristic impedance of free space, ZC = ()1/2 =377.The ratio of ZC /RQ =1/377 has a special significance in physics and is called the fine structure constant; it is set by only three fundamental constants of nature: e, h,c. For electrical engineering, this means that nanodevices fall always need impedance matching circuits when driving loads mi\ore than a few cm away at RF and microwave frequencies. Integration can provide a solution to this problem. For nanoelectronic devices closely spaced down to the nanoscale, the capacitive loading from one device to the next can be minimized. For full effect, the interconnects should be nanoscale as well; lithographically fabricated interconnects may be too large to realize the full potential of nano-electronics.Our work on the high frequency electrical properties of active and passive nanodevices provides a very small step towards achieving this ultimate goal of integrated nanosystems.

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CONCLUSION
Modeling and predictions for nanoelectronics as interconnects, transistors, and antennas. It is clear that nano-electronic devices can fulfill all three roles, with outstanding predicted performance. Then we can predict carbon nanotube transistor may be faster than conventional semiconductor technologies. There are many challenges that must be overcome to meet this goal, which can be best be achieved by integration of nanosystems.Future work remains to be done on understanding non-linear- nanoelectronic devices for applications such as mixers and detectors.

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REFERENCES
Burke PJ. An RF circuit model for carbon nanotubes. IEEE Trans Nanotechnol P.J. Burke Carbon nanoelectronics technology 1. www.wikipedia.com 2. www.cientifica.com

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