Using a scanning transmission electron microscope, the team of researchers was able to directly image an individual 'antimony dopant' atom within crystalline silicon.
Scientists at Bell Labs announced Thursday that they have found a way, using a special electron microscope, to look deep inside a semiconductor and create an image of a single impurity atom embedded in the silicon. This is a critical requirement if future generations of electronics are to continue to shrink.
"They scan through the sample, and the beam is so small it can actually go between atoms," Lucent Technologies spokesperson Saswato Das told NewsFactor. "They can actually see single atoms."
This is the first time an individual impurity atom has been pictured in its undisturbed state within a crystal. The scientists compared the event to observing a footprint on the moon from Earth.
"It has become critically important to both image and understand the chemical and physical environment within devices, because these properties will ultimately determine the extent to which we can continue to shrink silicon dimensions," Elsa Reichmanis of Bell Labs said in announcing the discovery.
News source: NewsFactor - Bell Labs Unveils Chip-Shrinking Breakthrough
Scientists at Bell Labs announced Thursday that they have found a way, using a special electron microscope, to look deep inside a semiconductor and create an image of a single impurity atom embedded in the silicon. This is a critical requirement if future generations of electronics are to continue to shrink.
"They scan through the sample, and the beam is so small it can actually go between atoms," Lucent Technologies spokesperson Saswato Das told NewsFactor. "They can actually see single atoms."
This is the first time an individual impurity atom has been pictured in its undisturbed state within a crystal. The scientists compared the event to observing a footprint on the moon from Earth.
"It has become critically important to both image and understand the chemical and physical environment within devices, because these properties will ultimately determine the extent to which we can continue to shrink silicon dimensions," Elsa Reichmanis of Bell Labs said in announcing the discovery.
News source: NewsFactor - Bell Labs Unveils Chip-Shrinking Breakthrough
Image Problem Solved
The discovery could be a key to understanding the limits of transistor scaling, according to scientists. Impurities, which the electronics industry refers to as "dopants," are injected into silicon on purpose to act as "charge carriers" that control a semiconductor's electrical properties.
As chip components continue to shrink, "the industry is approaching a point where just a few atoms of impurities could determine the function of a particular device," the Bell Labs announcement said.
Scientists have been able to observe the behavior of these atoms on the surface for some time. The problem has been that they behave very differently on the surface than they do inside the semiconductor, and scientists have not been able to observe exactly how or why they differ.
Atoms on Display
Using a scanning transmission electron microscope, the team of researchers was able to directly image an individual "antimony dopant" atom within crystalline silicon.
"Now we can look at things hidden inside a solid, in their natural environment," Bell Labs physicist David Muller said. "It's as qualitatively different as seeing how an animal behaves in a zoo and how it behaves in its natural habitat."
Muller explained it this way: "If you think of an eight-inch silicon wafer on which we grow our chips as the size of the United States, a single transistor is the size of a car, and a single atom is the size of a pin. We are able to locate the equivalent of a few pins, hidden in a few cars, somewhere in the United States."
Understanding Impurities
Understanding impurity atoms at the atomic level not only will allow the shrinking of future generations of high-speed electronics, but will help in other areas of science as well.
The technique can be applied to other materials in addition to semiconductors. Scientists said it has already proved useful in troubleshooting optoelectronic components.
Good News for Lucent
The discovery by Bell Labs, the research and development arm of telecommunications equipment maker Lucent Technologies, was a much-needed bit of good news for the parent company. Lucent recently announced that it will cut 5,000 more jobs than previously expected by the end of June.
The company, based in Murray Hill, New Jersey, was also recently named one of the five worst examples of poor financial and governance by the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS). Lucent was named because of its lack of independence and conflicts of interest, according to CalPERS.
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