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Ambipolar carbon nanotube transistors with hybrid nanodielectric for low-voltage cmos-like electronics

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title> jats:pThe proliferation of place-and-forget devices driven by the exponentially-growing Internet of Things industry has created a demand for low-voltage thin-film transistor (TFT) electronics based on solution-processible semiconductors. Amongst solution-processible technologies, TFTs based on semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (sc-SWCNTs) are a promising candidate owing to their comparatively high current driving capability in their above-threshold region at low voltages, which is desirable for applications with constraints on supply voltage and switching speed. Low-voltage above-threshold operation in sc-SWCNTs is customarily achieved by using high-capacitance-density gate dielectrics such as metal-oxides fabricated via atomic layer deposition (ALD) and ion-gels. These are unattractive, as ALD requires complex-processing or exotic precursors, while ion-gels lead to slower devices with poor stability. This work demonstrates the fabrication of low-voltage above-threshold sc-SWCNTs TFTs based on a high-capacitance-density hybrid nanodielectric, which is composed of a readily-made AlOjats:italic jats:subx</jats:sub> </jats:italic> nanolayer and a solution-processed self-assembled monolayer (SAM). The resultant TFTs can withstand a gate-channel voltage of 1–2 V, which ensures their above-threshold operation with balanced ambipolar behavior and electron/hole mobilities of 7 cmjats:sup2</jats:sup> Vjats:sup−1</jats:sup> sjats:sup−1</jats:sup>. Key to achieving balanced ambipolarity is the mitigation of environmental factors via the encapsulation of the devices with an optimized spin-on polymer coating, which preserves the inherent properties of the sc-SWCNTs. Such balanced ambipolarity enables the direct implementation of CMOS-like circuit configurations without the use of additional dopants, semiconductors or source/drain electrode metals. The resultant CMOS-like inverters operate in the above-threshold region with supply voltages in the 1–2 V range, and have positive noise margins, gain values surpassing 80 V/V, and a bandwidth exceeding 100 kHz. This reinforces SAM-based nanodielectrics as an attractive route to easy-to-fabricate sc-SWCNT TFTs that can operate in the above-threshold region and that can meet the demand for low-voltage TFT electronics requiring moderate speeds and higher driving currents for wearables and sensing applications.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

carbon nanotubes, transistor, thin film, self assembled monolayer, nanoelectronics, low voltage, printed electronics

Journal Title

Nano Futures

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2399-1984
2399-1984

Volume Title

5

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K03099X/1)
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Research Infrastructures (RI) (685758)
The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61950410619, 61950410759, 61805166, 61750110517 and 61874132), the Jiangsu Province Natural Science Foundation (BK20170345), and National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFB0401100). Additionally, this work is supported by the Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science & Technology, the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), the 111 Project, the Joint International Research Laboratory of Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Impact Acceleration Account res. grant no. 90413, Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Large-Area Electronics EP/K03099X/1), and the EU H2020 Project No. 685758 “1DNEON”.