AbstractsPhysics

In this thesis, we present two separate studies: (1) The development and use of “amibipolar” ballistic electron emission microscopy (BEEM), which allows the measurement of Schottky barrier heights for both electrons and holes at the same location on the same metal/semiconductor contact with nm-scale spatial resolution and meV-scale energy resolution. A significant accomplishment of this study is the successful development of a new method that can monitor lateral variations of the local interface electric field and local interface dipoles at metal/semiconductor contacts by monitoring local variations in the electron- and hole SBHs. (2) Ion milling and inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching (ICP-RIE) of vertical silicon nanowires, in order to increase the fraction of vertical vs. non-vertical nanowires.