Quantum size effect in nanocorrals: From fundamental to potential applications

Conventional silicon-based devices are approaching the scaling limits toward super miniaturization, where the quantum size effect naturally emerges with increasing importance. Exploring the quantum size effect may provide additional functionality and alternative architectures for information processing and computation. Scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy is an ideal tool to explore such an opportunity as it can construct the devices in an atom-by-atom fashion and investigate their morphologies and properties down to the atomic level. Utilizing nanocorrals as examples, the quantum size effect is demonstrated to possess the great capability in guiding the adatom diffusion and the self-assembly, controlling the statistical fluctuation, tuning the Kondo temperature, etc. Besides these fundamentals, it also shows strong potential in logic operations as the basic logic gates are constructed.