[...]... VCH-Wiley for their deadline tolerance, and especially to Dr Jörn Ritterbusch and his team for support To Micheline and Cristina for enduring our distracted glares at home as we fought the clock (the calendar) to finish, and for believing in us Jan G Korvink and Andreas Greiner, Freiburg im Breisgau, February 2002 14 Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology Chapter 1 Introduction Semiconductors. .. to explain its building blocks and their interactions in the light of scale considerations 18 Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology Popular Definitions and Acronyms 1.2 Popular Definitions and Acronyms The microelectronic and microsystem world is replete with terminology and acronyms The number of terms grows at a tremendous pace, without regard to aesthetics and grammar Their use is ruled... Italian: tecnologia dei microsistemi, etc.) Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology 23 Introduction 1.3 Sources of Information We encourage every student to regularly consult the published literature, and in particular the following journals: IOP • Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering • Journal of Nanotechnology IEEE • Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems • Journal of Electron Devices... ever created To 24 Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology References for Chapter 1 understand the workings of the semiconductor silicon, it helps to approach it as a system of interacting subsystems The subsystems comprise the crystal lattice and its quantized vibrations—the phonons, electromagnetic radiation and its quantized form— the photons, and the loosely bound quantized charges—the... size of a transistor gate is the key size, which we know has dropped to below 100 22 Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology Popular Definitions and Acronyms Figure 1.3 NEMS devices Depicted are two tips of an atomic force microscope, made in CMOS, and used to visualize the force field surrounding individual atoms Illustration © Physical Electronics Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Switzerland [1.4]... interspersed in the text There are many people to thank for their contributions, and for their help or support To the Albert Ludwig University for creating a healthy research environment, and for granting one of us (Korvink) sabbatical leave To Ritsumeikan University in Kusatsu, Japan, and especially to Prof Dr Osamu Tabata, who hosted one of us (Korvink) while on sabbatical and where one chapter of the book... material, to form the gate insulation for a transistor, and of course to protect the top surface of a chip Silicon can also be grown as a doped amorphous film In this state we lose some of the special properties of semiconductors that we will explore in this book In the amorphous form we almost have metal-like Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology 19 Introduction behavior, and indeed, semiconductor... cost and resources in energy and personnel that it takes to handle materials that need additional nonstandard technological treatment This is not to say that semiconductors other than silicon are unimportant, and there are many beautiful applications But most of today’s engineers encounter silicon CMOS as a process with which to realize their ideas for microscopic systems Therefore, most of the emphasis... technology as Micromachining In Europe, the terms Microsystems, Microtechnology or Microsystem Technology have taken root, with the addition of Nanosystems and the inevitable Nanosystem Technology following closely The European naming convention is popular since it is easily translated into any of a large number of languages (German: Mikrosystemtechnik, French: Microtechnique, Italian: tecnologia dei microsistemi,... of this book lies in the explanation of the properties and behavior of silicon, or better said, “the semiconductor system silicon” 16 Semiconductors for Micro and Nanosystem Technology The System Concept A semiconductor can be viewed as consisting of many subsystems For one, there are the individual atoms, combining to form a chunk of crystalline material, and thereby changing their behavior from individual