Electron conduction through quasi-one-dimensional indium atomic wires on silicon

Abstract

Electron conduction through quasi-one-dimensional (1D) indium atomic wires on silicon (the Si(111)-4x1-In reconstruction) is clarified with the help of local structural analysis using scanning tunneling microscopy. The reconstruction has a conductance per square as high as 100 uS, with global conduction despite numerous surface steps. A complete growth of indium wires up to both the surface steps and the lithographically printed electrodes is essential for the macroscopic transport. The system exhibits a metal-insulator transition at 130 K, consistent with a recent ultraviolet photoemission study [H. W. Yeom, S. Takeda, E. Rotenberg, I. Matsuda, K. Horikoshi, J. Schaefer, C. M. Lee, S. D. Kevan, T. Ohta, T. Nagao, and S. Hasegawa, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4898 (1999)]

4 pages, 3 figures

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Macroscopic Superconducting Current through a Silicon Surface Reconstruction with Indium Adatoms: Si(111)-(R7$\times$R3)-In
• Imaging Josephson Vortices on the Surface Superconductor Si(111)-(root7xroot3)-In using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope
• Phase transition of the Si(111)-4x1-In surface reconstruction investigated by electron transport measurements