Transport and noise properties of Si nanowire channels with different lengths before and after gamma radiation treatment

The transport properties of Si nanowire (NW) structures fabricated on the basis of silicon on insulator (SOI) wafers were studied using noise spectroscopy before and after treatment with small doses of gamma radiation. The total resistance obtained from the I-V characteristics of Si NW structures scaled perfectly with length. Normalized flicker noise demonstrated 1/L2 dependence, which is a characteristic of dominant noise contribution from near-contact regions. The behavior changed to 1/L dependence after a small dose (1×104 Gy) of gamma radiation treatment. Comparison of the random telegraph signal (RTS) noise parameters in the samples with small lengths before and after the treatment revealed a decrease in RTS amplitude and a shift to a lower frequency range after gamma irradiation. These results confirmed that the main changes in the samples were related to strain relaxation near-contact regions. In addition, such treatment resulted in a considerable decrease in the scattering data of device parameters