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Hysteresis-free operation of suspended carbon nanotube transistors

Nature Nanotechnology volume 5, pages 589–592 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Single-walled carbon nanotubes offer high sensitivity and very low power consumption when used as field-effect transistors in nanosensors1,2. Suspending nanotubes between pairs of contacts, rather than attaching them to a surface, has many advantages in chemical3, optical4 or displacement1,5 sensing applications, as well as for resonant electromechanical systems6,7. Suspended nanotubes can be integrated into devices after nanotube growth3,5,8,9, but contamination caused by the accompanying additional process steps can change device properties. Ultraclean suspended nanotubes can also be grown between existing device contacts1,4,10,11, but high growth temperatures limit the choice of metals that can be used as contacts. Moreover, when operated in ambient conditions, devices fabricated by either the post- or pre-growth approach typically exhibit gate hysteresis3,8,10,12, which makes device behaviour less reproducible. Here, we report the operation of nanotube transistors in a humid atmosphere without hysteresis. Suspended, individual and ultraclean nanotubes are grown directly between unmetallized device contacts, onto which palladium is then evaporated through self-aligned on-chip shadow masks. This yields pairs of needle-shaped source/drain contacts that have been theoretically shown to allow high nanotube–gate coupling and low gate voltages13. This process paves the way for creating ultrasensitive nanosensors based on pristine suspended nanotubes.

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Figure 1: Contactless patterned metallization of suspended SWNTs by on-chip shadow masking.
Figure 2: Suspended, pristine SWNT arranged as a long-channel field-effect transistor with minute hysteresis.
Figure 3: Suspended short-channel field-effect transistor without hysteresis.
Figure 4: Needle-like contacts for suspended as-grown SWNTs created by on-chip shadow masking.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF: 200020-121831), ETH Zurich (13/05-3) and Nano-Tera.ch (a program of the Swiss Confederation), as well as general support by the ETH FIRST laboratory team (in particular O. Homan and S. Bellini). The authors thank A. Jungen, B. Burg, C. Stampfer, M. Haluska, M. Mattmann, K. Chikkadi and T. Süss for helpful discussions. TEM was carried out at the Electron Microscopy Facility of ETH Zurich (EMEZ, partially financed by R'Equip), and assistance and support from F. Gramm and P. Tittmann is acknowledged.

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  1. Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Micro and Nanosystems, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    M. Muoth, T. Helbling, L. Durrer, S.-W. Lee, C. Roman & C. Hierold

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  1. M. Muoth
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  2. T. Helbling
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Contributions

M.M. devised the shadow mask concept and performed the experiments. L.D., T.H. and S.-W.L. contributed to catalyst preparation, electron-beam lithography and SWNT growth. C.R. contributed to discussions and simulations. C.H. initiated the research and contributed to discussions and conclusions. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to M. Muoth.

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Muoth, M., Helbling, T., Durrer, L. et al. Hysteresis-free operation of suspended carbon nanotube transistors. Nature Nanotech 5, 589–592 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.129

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