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Modulation doping

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Modulation doping is a technique for fabricating semiconductors such that the free charge carriers are spatially separated from the donors. Because this eliminates scattering from the donors, modulation-doped semiconductors have very high carrier mobilities.

History

Modulation was conceived in Bell Labs in 1977 following a conversation between Horst Störmer and Ray Dingle[1], and implemented shortly afterwards by Art Gossard. In 1977, Störmer and Dan Tsui used a modulation-doped wafer to discover the fractional quantum Hall effect.

Applications

Field effect transistors

Modulation-doped transistors can reach high electrical mobilities and therefore fast operation. A modulation-doped field-effect transistor is known as a MODFET.[2]

Low-temperature electronics

One advantage of modulaion doping is that the charge carriers cannot become trapped on the donors even at the lowest temperatures. For this reason, modulation-doped heterostructures allow electronics operating at cryogenic temperatures.

Quantum computing

Modulation-doped two-dimensional electron gases can be gated to create quantum dots. Electrons trapped in these dots can then be operated as quantum bits. [3]