Nanoscale Electrochemical Switches

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Nanoscale Electrochemical Switches
OFF
ON

• Dr. James G. Kushmerick

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Nanoscale Electrochemical Switches
2 nm
OFF
ON
1. OFF state molecular tunnel junction 2.
Vthreshold reached. Ag filament bridges gap.
Switches ON. 3. Remains in ON state until
polarity switched. 4. At 0 V, device is returned
to OFF state.
Device can be rapidly cycled between ON and
OFF Greater than 1 million switch cycles
achieved Fastest monolayer switch to date 13
kHz On-Off Ratio gt 105 Device area 25 nm2
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Detail of Switch Mechanism
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Why would anyone be interested in a nanoscale
switch?
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CMOS Scaling
65 nm node (2005)
drives Si technology towards fundamental limits
Courtesy of Intel
Rocks Law the cost of a semiconductor chip
fabrication plant doubles every four years
Courtesy INTEL
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Nanoscale Crossbar Fabrication
Science 300 (2003) 112-115
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State of the Art Filament Switches
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Advantages

• Ease of fabrication
• Huge On-Off Ratio (gt105)
• High success rate for device fabrication (gt90)
• Small Device Area (25 nm2)

Challenges/Opportunities

• Slow Switch Speed (10 kHz) defines possible
  applications (e.g. memory arrays and FPGA)
• Not easily integrated into CMOS fab-line, but no
  fab-line needed

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Technology Applications

• Nanoscale Electrical Devices
• Memory Arrays
• Field-Programmable Gate Arrays

Commercial Applications

• Memory and logic for cell phone and other
  portable electronic devices

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Future Work

• Optimization of switch characteristics
• Increase switch speed
• Increase of cycles till failure
• Fabricate nanoscale memory devices

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Collaboration Opportunities

• Future work would best be done in collaboration
  between NIST and an interested industrial
  partner.
• Intellectual Property
• Self-Assembled Monolayer Based Silver Switches
• Provisional Patent Application filed 9/10/2007
• Serial 11/852,811

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Contact Information

• For further information contact
• James G. Kushmerick100 Bureau Drive Stop
  8372Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8372Tel (301)
  975-5697email james.kushmerick_at_nist.gov