Ponderomotive Field Effect Transistor

Over the past fifty years, technological advancements in the microelectronics industry have been astounding. As a result of this success, today’s microfabricated devices are inexpensive, can be produced in large volumes, and can be fabricated with billions of sub-100 nm logic elements as small area microchips. Further increases in computational density will require even more innovation, as fundamental limitations in semiconductor lithography are approached. One strong candidate for continued miniaturization is the integration of optical signals with electronics at the transistor level. An even more desirable device would be a transistor (or a similar electronic element) whose action is strongly modulated (gated) by an optical signal. Such device would benefit from the extraordinary bandwidth of the optical signal that could be delivered directly from a fiber, as well as from the logic capabilities of an electronic transistor. To fulfill the need for such a device, Nanohmics Inc. and Drs. Gennady Shvets and Alex Demkov at The University of Texas at Austin propose to develop an optically gated Ponderomotive Effect Transistor (PET) consisting of a plasmonic antenna placed in the gate area. The plasmonic antenna concentrates the intensity of the otherwise broadly focused laser beam in the gate region and locally modifies the band structure of the device. BENEFIT: With successful implementation of the proposed research effort, a new paradigm in microelectronic processing will be enabled. Fabrication of a ponderomotive effect transistor will provide a new method for transmitting data between microchip nodes and provide compelling capabilities in logic processing and information storage. This will be the result of the fact that transmission of optical data occurs without low loss. The key to the proposed innovation is the successful ability to model and fabricate device structure dimensions that can take advantage of the exceptionally high amplification found with resonant plasmonic coupling.