Nanotechnologies: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

The scope of works in the field of nanotechnologies in the RAS Siberian Branch looks impressive. Let’s consider a number of research projects, the success of which is evidenced by their support within the framework of the Federal Target Program.

The first classical work which became a genuine breakthrough in the new field devoted to the detonation diamond synthesis was completed at the Institute of Hydrodynamics (Novosibirsk, SB RAS). It was shown for the first time that the formation of ultradisperse diamonds takes place not in the detonation wave as was considered before. Actually, this wave only creates a reaction mixture (plasma) from which nanodiamonds are then formed in the course of a chemical reactions.

Next, works on developing nanodisperse powders, nanofibers, different nanomaterials, including carbon and molecular containers are particularly noteworthy. For example, the research studies devoted to fabricating a new filtering nanomaterial AquaVallis carried out at the Institute of Strength Physics and Material Science SB RAS at Tomsk Scientific Center were brought to the stage of practical realization.

Researchers from the Institute of Carbohydrates Reprocessing at Omsk Scientific Center have achieved a lot of success in developing new catalytic nanomaterials for purification and filtration of technogenic gases and liquids as well as sorbing agents for extraction of noble and nonferrous metals.

Novosibirsk Nanostructures joint research center established in 2003 at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics SB RAS, providing complex metrological, diagnostic and technological support for research studies in nanotechnologies, nanomaterials and nanoelectronics, deserves special notice. The work of this center has been supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

For war and peace

At the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS) the progress of nanotechnologies is based on molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) equipments. Developed almost 40 ears ago, this technology is based on layering different materials on flat substrate under conditions of ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV). At present, the market for MBE equipment producers is quite well developed, with the leading positions held by the French company RIBER and American company VECCO. However, such equipment can cost as much as 1—2 million euros, for which reason already in the end of the 1970s the development of MBE facilities was initiated at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS) by the member of the Russian Academy of Sciences A. V. Rzhanov.

Based on the HgCdTe heterostructures grown by MBE, a number of devices for the defense industry have been developed, including image tracking and position finding systems, as well as civil production devices. The Ministry of Education and Science has supported the research in the latter field with a state contract due to the fact that the joint stock company Russian Railways has guaranteed sales for optoelectronic systems which allow controlling heat emission of the rolling stock boxes for up to 1.5 billion rubles.

Fabrication of epitaxial semiconductor structures for high-frequency field-effect transistors can be considered as a great success of a research team from the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS). In cooperation with the Novosibirsk enterprise Oktava and Tomsk enterprise Micran, they have created amplifiers of 6W powers at frequency 10 GHz- phase-locked arrays of aerials, at present the best device in its category. Since one unit incorporates several thousand amplifying paths, their size and characteristics determine how small and effective such devices can be.

Another device the institute takes pride in is a vertical—resonator laser, which makes use of semiconductor nanostructures. It is the smallest source of coherent emission in the world. The laser has been developed in cooperation with a team of researchers from St. Petersburg and Germany, but the nanostructures themselves and the technology of their production were developed at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics.

Some of the parameters of nanostructures with complex organization, incorporating hundreds of thinnest layers with quantum wells and quantum dots used in lasers, have no analogy in the world. Their response time reaches tens of gigabytes per second, owing to which it is possible to reach an unbelievably high speed of data transfer of a terabit per second (1T bit = 10¹² bit) on matrix elements.

It has become a true revolution in inter-chip and inter-plane compounds which has a direct relation to ensuring efficiency and compactness of computing systems. Ultra-fast semiconductor lasers with vertical resonators can be used both in quantum cryptography and precision spectroscopy; in addition, they can be used as a standard measure of optical power.

Few molecules

Semiconductor nanostructures can find almost unlimited practical use in high technologies. For example, an original nanoelectronic device for biological applications developed at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS) presents a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MOS-nanotransistor based on metal-SOI structure with the gate length of tens of nanometers.

According to preliminary calculations, single charges can be registered on transistor surface, making it possible to use this device as organic molecules counter.The development of this technology has been also supported by a state contract.

In collaboration with the Institute of Chemical Biology and Fundamental Medicine (SB RAS), the investigations aimed at the uses of micro- and nanochannel wafers fabricated from monocrystalline silicon to register large organic molecules and filter ultradisperse biological molecules and nanoparticles have been conducted.

For microchannel wafers, it has been demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to record the hybridization (bonding) reaction of oligonucleotide probe marks—DNA fragments deposited in the wafer’s channels beforehand– with a complimentary DNA fragments. It is important to notice that all pieces of equipment used in these studies, including Fourier-IR-spectrometer and IR-microscope, have been also developed at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS).

A DNA sequencing device, still another unique joint project, is at its development stage. It is expected that it will be possible to analyze the whole human genome by means of such devices for several thousand dollars in the matter of several days, while at present it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes several months.

Such devices require membranes with precisely calibrated holes in the range from 1 to 70 nm, depending on a sequencing method. At the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS) by the use of high resolution electron lithography, they have already been able to fabricate two-dimensional systems of holes, reaching the size of 13 nm. For an electronic chip of DNA sequenation based on a single nanopore, holes an order of magnitude smaller are required. Nonetheless, the already existing technology allows fabricating membranes with a two-dimensional system of holes from 35 to 75 nm in size necessary for DNA sequencing by the confocal microscopy.

Metrological support for nanotechnologies presents still another very important problem little known to the wider audience. Again, it means that all the standards in this field should be substituted for the quantum ones. In this respect, semiconductor structures allow creating electric resistance standard based on the quantum Hall effect and volt and electric charge standards based on single electron effects in nanostructures. An example of the latter effect is single electron oscillations in the system with two tunnel junctions in titanium—titanium oxide nanostructures.

In addition, a variant of nanometer standard based on elementary steps at the atomically flat silicon crystal surface, which can be considered as the morphology “quanta” or primary standards, has been proposed at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics. The extreme accuracy of the standard has resulted from relating the monoatomic step parameters to those of the thermodynamically equilibrium parameters of the perfect silicon crystal lattice (at the given temperature and pressure).

At present, methods and technologies that have been developed allow creating test objects for precise calibrations of pieces of equipment which provide linear measurements of nanostructures used in nanotechnologies. Such test objects developed at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS) have been already used by the Russian firm NT-MDT to calibrate atomic-force microscopes produced in it.

The future starts today

Great perspectives in the development of nanotechnologies in nanoelectronics can be sketched as a “genealogical” tree.

It is expected that already in the nearest future photodetector devices and elements as well as energy saving semiconductor light sources will be mass produced. The latter devices will substitute all the existing light sources, the efficiency of which does not exceed several tens of percent.

Next, systems of total control based on nanophotonic elements will be created. Intellectual energy saving and transport management systems, smart houses, and management systems for controlling the ecological parameters for environment will be developed.

In the future, the size and mass of telecommunication systems will sharply decrease. Revolution in information technologies and computer systems will result in the emergence of such computer elements as quantum bits. In the remote future, quantum computers and terabit memory will appear.

Quantum computers will be capable of radically improving cryptographic systems used to protect confidential information transfer. They will be used for accelerated data base search and user signature authentication systems based on his/her digital signature.

Spintronics, a field of quantum electronics in which for physical representation of information, along with the charge, particle spin related with their own mechanic moment is used, is being developed for nanostructures already today. Nanoelectronics makes broad use of the quantum effect: electron tunneling and quantization of electron levels in quantum wells result in changes in state density in small size semiconductors. Considerable interest has been shown in the study of quantum bits and quantum systems from two states. In the nearest future, so-called entangled quantum state systems* from two particles can find broad use.

*Entanglement is the ability of microworld particles, for example, atoms, photons, and electrons to couple when approaching each other so that the quantum states of these particles will always be connected even if they are set widely apart. To use entangled quantum states for practical applications, it is necessary to learn to create and to transfer them at a considerable distance; then separate external noise and receive a “pure” state. 
If to imagine that some “ball” can be black or white, it is possible to speak about “zero” and “one” in relation to computer hardware or about the “ball” coding one bit. In the microworld, operating according to the laws of quantum physics, the “ball” presenting electron, photon or the atomic nucleus can be found in a superposition, i. e., in an intermediary state between zero and one. But it will not be a gray color “ball,” as could be inferred by analogy with the ordinary world; it will present a certain relationship of probabilities that this “ball” will be either black or white. As a result, the number of the “ball’s” states is incredibly high!

Quantum mechanics promises a variety of practical applications that might be quite unexpected at times. For example, thin titanium nitride superconducting films under certain conditions can become ideal insulators (superinsulators). Their resistance increases 100,000 times, which allows us to speak about the existence of superinsulation, a new quantum state of the substance (V. Vinokur, T. Baturina et al., 2008). Like a superconductor, a superinsulator is a system without Joule energy loss. The system can leave this state by thresholding when applying voltage or magnetic field. So far, such state has been detected only at super low temperatures of about 0.2 K, which, in the opinion of the expert community, opens new prospects in space technologies, such as the development of a variety of electronic devices, including switches, diodes, magnetic sensors and so on with close to ideal characteristics.

To conclude, even though with a delay, nanoboom has started in Russia as well. To a large extent, it has been “virtual” so far because the main nanotechnological products have come in the form of nanopowders, representing the previous-generation products, according to Western standards. However, we have the researchers with the necessary knowledge base in the field who started their studies in nanotechnologies long before the fuss in the media started.

The Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences has all the necessary components to conduct research in the field, including highly qualified staff and the infrastructure. Judging by the achievements conforming to the highest world standards, the SB RAS has all the chances of occupying one of the leading positions in nanoscience in Russia.

In any event, it should not be forgotten that Russia’s Achilles’ heel is not in the lack of smart and skilled people but in the difficulty of bringing the results of scientific research to the stage of practical application. For this reason even with considerable state support of the nanotechnological field, in the words of the former Russian prime-minister Mikhail Fradkov, “businessmen should understand that if they do not go into nanotechnolgies today, they will miss all the opportunities and in the best case scenario will work in dirty robes at oil well-sites, which will be managed by our foreign friends and partners.”

The author and the editorial board would like to thank for cooperation the researchers from the Rzhanov Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS) Dr. L. I. Fedina and RAS corresponding member A. V. Latyshev for their help in preparing the article for publication. Many researchers from the Institute of Semiconductor Physics (SB RAS) took part in obtaining the results that have been presented. The author would like to express his special thanks to the RAS corresponding member A. V. Dvurechenskii, professor, D.Sc. V. A. Gaysler, professor, D.Sc. Z. D. Kvon, D.Sc. V. N. Ovsuyk, D.Sc.B. Z. Olshanetsky, D.Sc. V. P. Popov, professor, D.Sc. O. P. Pchelyakov, professor, D.Sc. Yu. G. Sidorov, Dr. T. I. Baturina, Dr. I. V. Sabinina, Dr. V. A. Tkachenko, Dr. S. A. Tiys, Dr. A. I. Toropov, Dr. D. V. Sheglov, researchers D. A. Nasimov and S. S. Kosolobov