Abstract
Advanced electronics in the post-Moore era require foundry-level performance enhancements. Carbon nanotube field-effect transistors, compatible with commercial silicon manufacturing, surpass the fundamental performance limits of silicon field-effect transistors. However, interface imperfections between carbon nanotubes and the dielectric cause poor gate controllability and current leakage. This work demonstrates that organic molecules near the carbon nanotubes can be mitigated by high-energy γ-ray irradiation. The treatment reduces off-state current density to 112.2 pA μm−1, approaching the 100 pA μm−1 low-power target, and achieves an on/off ratio of ~105. The quasi-gate-all-around architecture shows radiation tolerance up to 100 Mrad(Si), surpassing traditional silicon-based devices by over two orders of magnitude. This foundry-compatible strategy operates at room temperature with high throughput, advancing the practical application of nanotube transistors.
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The authors declare that data generated in this study are provided in the paper and the Supplementary Information file. Further datasets are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 52402167(K.Z.), T2394474(W.-S. Z.), T2394470(W.-S.Z.), 62371019(X.-Y.L.), T2394475(X.-Y.L.)), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grants 2022YFB4400200(W.-S.Z.), and 2024YFA1210601(P.L.)), the Research Start-up Funds of Hangzhou International Innovation Institute of Beihang University (grant 2024KQ052(X.-Y.L.)), the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF (grant GZC20233368(K.Z.)), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grants 2024M764084(K.Z.), and 2025T181122(K.Z.)), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (JKF-2025001724713(W.-S.Z.)), the Beijing Outstanding Young Scientist Program(W.-S.Z.), and National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Vacuum Electronics(P.L. and K.Z.). We thank Prof. Kaili Jiang (Tsinghua University) for proving the suspended CNTs, Wenxin Wang for technical assistance with CNT-films transfer, Xiao Bi for discussions on γ-ray irradiation processes, Jiangtao Wang, Yifan Liu, Xuze Fu, Yuanqi Wei, Guo Chen, and Zi Yuan for discussions on mechanism of irradiation.
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W.-S.Z. and L.-M.P. supervised the project. K.Z., H.-T.X., X.-Y.L., L.-M.P., and W.-S.Z. proposed the project. K.Z., N.-F.G., and H.-T.X. designed the experiments. N.-F.G. and K.Z. carried out the device fabrication. K.Z. and J.-B.Z. performed the irradiation experiments. K.Z. performed the electrical characterization and materials characterizations (SEM, TEM, AFM, XPS, and Raman). K.Z. growth and manipulation of suspended CNTs. L.-M.P., H.-T.X., K.Z., and Y.L. contributed to the device modeling and data analysis. K.Z., H.T.X., X.-Y.L., and L.-M.P. wrote the manuscript. J.-H.Z., D.-M.Z., P.L., and X.H.W. discussed the results and provided constructive comments on the manuscript.
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Zhang, K., Gao, N., Zhang, J. et al. Boosting carbon nanotube transistors through γ-ray irradiation. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68673-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-68673-0
