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Ionic effects on the transport characteristics of nanowire-based FETs in a liquid environment

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Abstract

For the development of ultra-sensitive electrical bio/chemical sensors based on nanowire field effect transistors (FETs), the influence of the ions in the solution on the electron transport has to be understood. For this purpose we establish a simulation platform for nanowire FETs in the liquid environment by implementing the modified Poisson-Boltzmann model into Landauer transport theory. We investigate the changes of the electric potential and the transport characteristics due to the ions. The reduction of sensitivity of the sensors due to the screening effect from the electrolyte could be successfully reproduced. We also fabricated silicon nanowire Schottky-barrier FETs and our model could capture the observed reduction of the current with increasing ionic concentration. This shows that our simulation platform can be used to interpret ongoing experiments, to design nanowire FETs, and it also gives insight into controversial issues such as whether ions in the buffer solution affect the transport characteristics or not.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Materials Science and Max Bergmann Center of Biomaterials, TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Daijiro Nozaki, Jens Kunstmann, Felix Zörgiebel, Sebastian Pregl, Larysa Baraban & Gianaurelio Cuniberti

  2. Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, 3000 Broadeway, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Jens Kunstmann

  3. NaMlab gGmbH, Nöthinger Str. 64, 01187, Dresden, Germany

    Walter M. Weber & Thomas Mikolajick

  4. Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfAED), TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Gianaurelio Cuniberti

  5. Dresden Center for Computational Materials Science (DCCMS), TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Gianaurelio Cuniberti

Authors
  1. Daijiro Nozaki
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  2. Jens Kunstmann
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  3. Felix Zörgiebel
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  4. Sebastian Pregl
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  5. Larysa Baraban
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  6. Walter M. Weber
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  7. Thomas Mikolajick
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  8. Gianaurelio Cuniberti
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Correspondence to Daijiro Nozaki.

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Nozaki, D., Kunstmann, J., Zörgiebel, F. et al. Ionic effects on the transport characteristics of nanowire-based FETs in a liquid environment. Nano Res. 7, 380–389 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-013-0404-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-013-0404-9

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