[Legacy Report] A Short Course on Nanotechnology Journey from Quantum Physics to Nanoengineering

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IEEE Electron Device Society (EDS) Student Branch Chapter, IIT-Roorkee and Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering are jointly organized short course by Prof. Vijay K. Arora, Wilkes University,USA in April 2, 2014. The Topic of the course was nanotechnology Journey from Quantum Physics to Nanoengineering.
Quantum (digital-type) concepts in nanomaterials are gaining eminence over and above the classical ones (analog-type) in miniaturized devices where nanometer size can be less than or equal to the de Broglie wavelength of an electron in any of the three Cartesian directions. The silicon era is facing serious hurdles in meeting the expectations of Moore’s law that in the past doubled the number of transistors on a chip every 18 months. As scaling progresses into nanoscale regime and new carbonbased nanomaterials on the horizon, the scientific community is looking for new breakthroughs in search of More than Moore. One clear aspect of this miniaturization is that an electric field driving carriers can be extremely high. This converts random carrier motion into a streamlined one, thereby limiting the velocity to thermal velocity or Fermi velocity depending on the degeneracy
of the sample. This re-organization of the carrier velocities flouts familiar Ohm’s law, thereby enhancing the role of high-field velocity saturation in performance evaluation and characterization of nanostructures. Nonequilibrium Arora distribution function (NEADF) is the key to understanding conversion of stochastic velocity vectors to streamlined ones in all nanomaterials. A free flight of a carrier may be interrupted by an emission of a quantum of energy in the form of a phonon or photon. This emission further limits the saturation velocity and also degrades the diffusion coefficient. The series of lectures demonstrated that a higher mobility does not necessarily lead to a higher saturation velocity. Ballistic transport where the channel length is below the scattering-limited mean free path has interesting connotations for degrading mobility in contradistinction to
the normally held view that elimination of scattering should result in mobility enhancement. NEADF sheds new light on collision-free ballistic transport, which contrary to normal expectations of resistance vanishing, not only shows enhanced resistance but also its quantization in a one-dimensional nanomaterial. This brings a new current-voltage relationship with resistance (both direct and incremental) rising with the applied dc voltage and reaching a resistance quantum in a nanowire or carbon nanotube,
containing a very few electrons. Applications to nanolayers, nanowires, graphene, and carbon nanotubes were discussed.

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