Accurate prediction and proposed method of measurement of the Casimir effect in silicon MOS devices

James A. Slinkman

doi:10.1117/12.561824

19 October 2004 Accurate prediction and proposed method of measurement of the Casimir effect in silicon MOS devices

James A. Slinkman

Proceedings Volume 5551, Quantum Communications and Quantum Imaging II; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.561824
Event: Optical Science and Technology, the SPIE 49th Annual Meeting, 2004, Denver, Colorado, United States

Abstract

Recently, several researchers have been able to measure precisely the contribution of the Casimir force to the dynamics of micro-electromechanical devices. Thus there is no doubt of the importance of these physics at the nanometer scale in metallic films. However, almost twenty years ago, it was estimated that the ratio of the Casimir energy to the Coulomb energy stored by a production, metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), having a gate oxide thickness of 50 nm, in a state of charge inversion should be of order 10%. Yet today's production MOSFET technologies are engineered with gate oxide thickness on the order of 2 nm, implying a Casimir-to-Coulomb energy ratio of well over 100% by using the original calculation. If this were correct, the Casimir effect would of necessity be a major factor in the design and in the resulting performance of current MOS technologies. This does not appear to be the case. In this light, the purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) To demonstrate that by including more precise physics the original estimate was too high, and 2) To propose a practicable method of measuring the strength of the Casimir effect in the MOS system.

Citation Download Citation

James A. Slinkman "Accurate prediction and proposed method of measurement of the Casimir effect in silicon MOS devices", Proc. SPIE 5551, Quantum Communications and Quantum Imaging II, (19 October 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.561824

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