E2CDA: Type I: Collaborative Research: Interconnects Beyond Cu

当电子在电线中移动时，它们会被振动的原子和电线缺陷散射。这种散射是电阻的来源，并导致功率消耗。对于现代电子（互连）中使用的电线来说，这已经是计算性能的瓶颈，并且随着电线（以及晶体管）变得更小而恶化。这个项目的目标是使导线非常小（宽度和高度均为10纳米），并且结构完美，从而产生量子尺寸效应，并且电子可以以弹道方式传播而不会散射。这可能会导致电阻和计算能效的数量级提高，并使电子学发生革命。除了改进计算的社会效益外，该计划还将支持哥伦比亚大学、麻省理工学院、伦斯勒理工学院和中佛罗里达大学四所机构的本科、研究生和博士后水平的教育和研究。推广工作将包括：(1)哈莱姆学校合作伙伴关系（HSP）在科罗拉多大学进行STEM教育，(2)麻省理工学院的材料日进行行业推广，(3)RPI的高中女生发现工程项目，以及(4)UCF的techCAMP“信息的未来”。为了实现金属纳米线的弹道传导目标，该项目将包括单晶金属薄膜和线的制备和原子尺度表征，以及电子传递行为的实验测量，钌作为初始研究的金属选择。金属线的稳定性也将被研究，因为这对计算系统互连的可靠性至关重要。理论和计算物理建模工作将旨在提供对尺寸和缺陷限制的弹道输运的定量理解，并为未来的工作确定用于互连的弹道电导的首选金属。开发的计算模型和代码将在Nanohub （https://nanohub.org/）上提供。该项目还将提供一个原理验证演示，说明拟议的金属导体如何制造，以供半导体行业实施技术。

When electrons move through wires, they are scattered by vibrating atoms and wire imperfections. This scattering is the source of the electrical resistance and results in power consumption. For the wires used in modern electronics (interconnects) this is already a bottleneck to computing performance and is worsening as the wires (along with the transistors) are made smaller. The aim of this program is to make the wires so small ( 10-nm in width and height) and so structurally perfect that quantum size effects arise and the electrons can travel in a ballistic fashion without scattering. This can result in orders of magnitude improvements in resistance and computing energy efficiency and enable a revolution in electronics. In addition to the societal benefit of improved computing, the program will support education and research at the undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral levels at four institutions, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Central Florida. The outreach effort will include: (1) The Harlem Schools Partnership (HSP) for STEM education at CU, (2) MIT's Materials Day for industry outreach, (3) the Discovery Engineering program for high-school girls at RPI, and (4) the techCAMP "Future of Information" at UCF.To achieve its goal of ballistic conduction in metallic nanowires, the project will include the preparation and atomic scale characterization of single crystal metallic films and lines as well as experimental measurement of electron transport behavior, with ruthenium as the metal of choice for the initial studies. The stability of the metallic lines will also be investigated, since this is critical to the reliability of interconnects in computing systems. A theoretical and computational physics modeling effort will aim to provide a quantitative understanding of ballistic transport in the size and defect limits, and serve to identify preferred metals for ballistic conductance of interconnects for future efforts. The computational models and codes developed will be made available on the Nanohub (https://nanohub.org/). The project will additionally provide a proof-of-principle demonstration of how the proposed metallic conductors can be fabricated for technology implementation by the semiconductor industry.