Deionization of Dopants in Silicon Nanofilms Even with Donor Concentration of Greater than 10(19) cm(-3).

Understanding the dopant properties in heavily doped nanoscale semiconductors is essential to design nanoscale devices. We report the deionization or finite ionization energy of dopants in silicon (Si) nanofilms with dopant concentration (ND) of greater than 10(19) cm(-3), which is in contrast to the zero ionization energy (ED) in bulk Si at the same ND. From the comparison of experimentally observed and theoretically calculated ED, we attribute the deionization to the suppression of metal-insulator transition in highly doped nanoscale semiconductors in addition to the quantum confinement and the dielectric mismatch, which greatly increase ED in low-doped nanoscale semiconductors. Thus, for nanoscale transistors, ND should be higher than that estimated from bulk Si dopant properties in order to reduce their resistivity by the metal-insulator transition.