High Gain and Fast Detection of Warfare Agents Using Back-Gated Silicon-Nanowired MOSFETs

Vikram Passi (1) , Florent Ravaux (1) , Emmanuel Dubois (1) , Simon Clavaguera (2) , Alexandre Carella (2) , Caroline Celle (2) , Jean-Pierre Simonato (2) , Luca Silvestri (3) , Susanna Reggiani (3) , Dominique Vuillaume (1) , Jean-Pierre Raskin (4)

1 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520
2 LITEN - Laboratoire d'Innovation pour les Technologies des Energies Nouvelles et les nanomatériaux
3 ARCES - Advanced Research Center on Electronic Systems for Information and Communication Technologies E. De Castro [Bologna]
4 Département de mathématique [Louvain]

—The top-down fabrication of doped p-type silicon-nanowired (NW) arrays and their application as gas detectors is presented. After surface functionalization with 3-(4-ethynyl-benzyl)-1, 5, 7-trimethyl-3-azabicyclo [3.3.1] nonane-7-methanol molecules, the wires were subjected to an organophosphorous simulant, and both static and dynamic measurements were performed. A current gain of 4 × 10 6 is obtained upon the detection of the subpart-per-million concentration of a nerve-agent simu-lant. This represents a four-decade improvement over previous demonstration based on nanoribbons, proving better sensing capabilities of NWs. Technology-computer-aided-design simulations before and after gas detection have been performed to gain insight into the physical mechanisms involved in the gas detection and to investigate the impact of the surface-to-volume ratio on sensor sensitivity.

Keywords: Gas detection; metal–oxide–semiconductor fieldeffect transistors (MOSFETs); silicon nanowires (NWs); silicon surface functionalization.; Gas detection; metal–oxide–semiconductor fieldeffect transistors (MOSFETs); silicon nanowires (NWs); silicon surface functionalization.

Domains: Condensed Matter [cond-mat]

Vikram Passi, Florent Ravaux, Emmanuel Dubois, Simon Clavaguera, Alexandre Carella, et al.. High Gain and Fast Detection of Warfare Agents Using Back-Gated Silicon-Nanowired MOSFETs. IEEE Electron Device Letters, 2011, 32, pp.1-3. ⟨10.1109/LED.2011.2146750⟩. ⟨cea-01344105⟩