E2CDA: Type I: Collaborative Research: Interconnects Beyond Cu

当电子在导线中移动时，它们会被振动的原子和导线的缺陷散射。这种散射是电阻的来源，并导致功耗。对于现代电子产品（互连）中使用的导线来说，这已经是计算性能的瓶颈，并且随着导线（沿着晶体管）被做得更小，情况正在恶化。 该计划的目的是使导线如此之小（宽度和高度均为10 nm），结构如此完美，以至于量子尺寸效应出现，电子可以以弹道方式传播而不会散射。这可以导致电阻和计算能效的数量级改进，并实现电子革命。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、马萨诸塞州理工学院、伦斯勒理工学院和中央佛罗里达大学这四所大学的本科生、研究生和博士后水平的教育和研究。外联工作将包括：（1）CU的STEM教育哈莱姆学校合作伙伴关系（HSP），（2）MIT的材料日行业推广，（3）RPI的高中女生发现工程计划，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条的制备和原子尺度的表征，以及电子传输行为的实验测量，并将钌作为初步研究的金属选择。金属线的稳定性也将被调查，因为这是至关重要的计算系统中的互连的可靠性。一个理论和计算物理建模工作的目的是提供一个定量的了解弹道传输的大小和缺陷的限制，并为未来的努力，以确定首选金属的弹道电导的互连。开发的计算模型和代码将在Nanohub（https：//nanohub.org/）上提供。此外，该项目还将提供一个原理验证演示，演示如何制造拟议的金属导体，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.