Band transport across a chain of dopant sites in silicon over micron distances and high temperatures

Abstract

Macroscopic manifestations of quantum mechanics are among the most spectacular effects of physics. In most of them, novel collective properties emerge from the quantum mechanical behaviour of their microscopic constituents. Others, like superconductivity, extend a property typical of the atomic scale to macroscopic length scale. Similarly, features of quantum transport in Hubbard systems which are only observed at nanometric distances in natural and artificial atoms embedded in quantum devices, could be in principle extended to macroscopic distances in microelectronic devices. By employing an atomic chain consists of an array of 20 atoms implanted along the channel of a silicon transistor with length of 1 μm, we extend to such unprecedented distance both the single electron quantum transport via sequential tunneling, and to room temperature the features of the Hubbard bands. Their observation provides a new example of scaling of quantum mechanical properties, previously observed only at the nanoscale, up to lengths typical of microelectronics, by opening new perspectives towards passage of quantum states and band engineering in silicon devices.