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Binary atomic silicon logic

Nature Electronics volume 1, pages 636–643 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

It has been proposed that miniature circuitry will ultimately be crafted from single atoms. Despite many advances in the study of atoms and molecules on surfaces using scanning probe microscopes, challenges with patterning and limited thermal structural stability have remained. Here we demonstrate rudimentary circuit elements through the patterning of dangling bonds on a hydrogen-terminated silicon surface. Dangling bonds sequester electrons both spatially and energetically in the bulk bandgap, circumventing short-circuiting by the substrate. We deploy paired dangling bonds occupied by one moveable electron to form a binary electronic building block. Inspired by earlier quantum dot-based approaches, binary information is encoded in the electron position, allowing demonstration of a binary wire and an OR gate.

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Fig. 1: Probing charge state transitions of a DB.
Fig. 2: Biasing of DB structures.
Fig. 3: Information transmission through a DB binary wire.
Fig. 4: OR gate constructed of dangling bonds.

Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Cloutier, D. Vick and M. Salomons for their technical expertise. We thank NRC, NSERC, QSi, Alberta Innovates, and Compute Canada for financial support. We thank F. Giessibl for providing us with the tuning forks for building the qPlus sensors. We thank K. Gordon for valuable suggestions and discussions. We thank B. Hesson for making and rendering the 3D animated Supplementary Video.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Taleana Huff, Hatem Labidi, Mohammad Rashidi, Thomas Dienel, Roshan Achal, Wyatt Vine & Robert A. Wolkow

  2. Quantum Silicon, Inc., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Taleana Huff, Lucian Livadaru, Roshan Achal, Jason Pitters & Robert A. Wolkow

  3. Nanotechnology Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Hatem Labidi, Jason Pitters & Robert A. Wolkow

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  1. Taleana Huff
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Contributions

T.H., H.L., M.R., T.D., R.A. and W.V. designed and performed the experiments and analysed the data. T.H., R.A.W., T.D., L.L., W.V. and M.R. co-wrote the paper. L.L and M.R. performed the theoretical modelling. J.P. and R.A. contributed to the interpretation and discussion of the results. R.A.W. conceived of and supervised the project. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Taleana Huff or Robert A. Wolkow.

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Competing interests

The authors declare competing financial interests: a patent has been filed on this subject. Some of the authors are affiliated with Quantum Silicon Inc. (QSi). QSi is seeking to commercialize atomic silicon quantum dot-based technologies.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Further details on Δf(V) spectroscopy, truth table of an OR gate, sim anneal software description, details on tip-induced band bending, Supplementary references, Supplementary Figures 1–6 and Supplementary Table 1.

Supplementary Video 1

Three-dimensional rendered cartoon animation demonstrating the functionality of silicon dangling bond structures.

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Huff, T., Labidi, H., Rashidi, M. et al. Binary atomic silicon logic. Nat Electron 1, 636–643 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-018-0180-3

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