Quantum size phenomena in single-crystalline bismuth nanostructures

Nature Publishing Group: Quantum materials . 2017. Vol. 2. No. 18. P. 1–4.

Arutyunov K., Sedov E. A., Riikonen K.

Size-dependent quantization of energy spectrum of conducting electrons in solids leads to oscillating
dependence of electronic properties on corresponding dimension(s). In conventional metals with typical
energy Fermi EF~1 eV and the charge carrier's effective masses m* of the order of free electron mass
m0, the quantum size phenomena provide noticeable impact only at nanometer scales. Here we
experimentally demonstrate that in single-crystalline semimetal bismuth nanostructures the electronic
conductivity non-monotonously decreases with reduction of the effective diameter. In samples grown
along the particular crystallographic orientation the electronic conductivity abruptly increases at scales
of about 50 nm due to metal-to-insulator transition mediated by the quantum confinement effect. The
experimental findings are in reasonable agreement with theory predictions. The quantum-size
phenomena should be taken into consideration to optimize operation of the next generation of ultrasmall
quantum nanoelectronic circuits.

Keywords: quantum size phenomena, квантовые размерные эффекты

Publication based on the results of: Physics of low-dimensional quantum systems (2016)