Examining the Screening Limit of Field Effect Devices via the Metal–Insulator Transition

Authors

• X. Hong, University of Nebraska–LincolnFollow
• A. Posadas, Yale University
• C. H. Ahn, Yale UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2005

Citation

Applied Physics Letters (2005) 86: 142501

Comments

Used by permission

Abstract

The electronic screening length, the distance over which an electric field is attenuated in a material, imposes a lower physical bound on the lateral size scaling of semiconductor field effect devices. Alternatives will be needed to achieve devices whose characteristic dimensions approach a nanometer. In this work, we demonstrate the atomic-scale nature of screening at high electron densities, using the polarization field of a ferroelectric oxide, Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃, to electrostatically modulate the metallicity of ultrathin manganite La_1−xSr_xMnO₃ (LSMO) films near the metal-insulator transition. Within the screening length, the transport characteristics of LSMO vary sharply at the scale of a single atomic layer.