Breakdown current density in h-BN-capped quasi-1D TaSe3 metallic nanowires: prospects of interconnect applications

Maxim A Stolyarov; Guanxiong Liu; Matthew A Bloodgood; Ece Aytan; Chenglong Jiang; Rameez Samnakay; Tina T Salguero; Denis L Nika; Sergey L Rumyantsev; Michael S Shur; Krassimir N Bozhilov; Alexander A Balandin

doi:10.1039/c6nr03469a

Breakdown current density in h-BN-capped quasi-1D TaSe3 metallic nanowires: prospects of interconnect applications

Nanoscale. 2016 Aug 25;8(34):15774-82. doi: 10.1039/c6nr03469a.

Affiliations

¹ Nano-Device Laboratory (NDL) and Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California - Riverside, Riverside, California 92521, USA. balandin@ece.ucr.edu.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, USA.
³ Nano-Device Laboratory (NDL) and Phonon Optimized Engineered Materials (POEM) Center, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California - Riverside, Riverside, California 92521, USA. balandin@ece.ucr.edu and E. Pokatilov Laboratory of Physics and Engineering of Nanomaterials, Department of Physics and Engineering, Moldova State University, Chisinau, MD-2009, Republic of Moldova.
⁴ Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, USA.
⁵ Central Facility for Advanced Microscopy and Microanalysis, University of California - Riverside, Riverside, California 92521, USA.

PMID: 27531559
DOI: 10.1039/c6nr03469a

Abstract

We report on the current-carrying capacity of the nanowires made from the quasi-1D van der Waals metal tantalum triselenide capped with quasi-2D boron nitride. The chemical vapor transport method followed by chemical and mechanical exfoliation were used to fabricate the mm-long TaSe3 wires with the lateral dimensions in the 20 to 70 nm range. Electrical measurements establish that the TaSe3/h-BN nanowire heterostructures have a breakdown current density exceeding 10 MA cm(-2)-an order-of-magnitude higher than that for copper. Some devices exhibited an intriguing step-like breakdown, which can be explained by the atomic thread bundle structure of the nanowires. The quasi-1D single crystal nature of TaSe3 results in a low surface roughness and in the absence of the grain boundaries. These features can potentially enable the downscaling of the nanowires to lateral dimensions in a few-nm range. Our results suggest that quasi-1D van der Waals metals have potential for applications in the ultimately downscaled local interconnects.