Abstract
The room-temperature longitudinal piezoresistance of -type and -type crystalline silicon along selected crystal axes is investigated under uniaxial compressive stresses up to 3 GPa. While the conductance () of -type silicon eventually saturates at of its zero-stress value () in accordance with the charge transfer model, in -type material increases above a predicted limit of without any significant saturation, even at 3 GPa. Calculation of using ab initio density functional theory reveals that neither nor the mobility, when properly averaged over the hole distribution, saturate at stresses lower than 3 GPa. The lack of saturation has important consequences for strained-silicon technologies.
- Received 16 February 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.256801
© 2012 American Physical Society