E2CDA: Type I: Collaborative Research: Interconnects Beyond Cu

当电子通过导线时，它们被振动的原子和导线缺陷散射。这种散射是电阻的来源，并导致功耗。对于现代电子产品中使用的电线(互连)来说，这已经是计算性能的瓶颈，而且随着电线(以及晶体管)变得更小，这一瓶颈正在恶化。该计划的目标是使导线变得非常小(宽度和高度都是10纳米)，结构非常完美，从而产生量子尺寸效应，电子可以在没有散射的情况下以弹道方式传播。这可以在电阻和计算能效方面带来数量级的改进，并使电子产品发生一场革命。除了改进计算的社会益处外，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生、研究生和博士后水平的教育和研究。外展工作将包括：(1)哈莱姆学校伙伴关系(HSP)在CU的STEM教育，(2)麻省理工学院的行业外展材料日，(3)RPI针对高中女孩的发现工程计划，以及(4)UCFTECHCAMP“信息的未来”。为了实现其在金属纳米线中的弹道传导目标，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输行为的实验测量，初步研究的金属是Ru的选择。还将研究金属线的稳定性，因为这对计算系统中互连的可靠性至关重要。理论和计算物理模拟工作将旨在提供对尺寸和缺陷限制中的弹道传输的定量了解，并为未来的努力确定作为互连弹道传导性的首选金属。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则证明演示，说明如何制造拟议的金属导体，以便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.