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Thickness-controlled black phosphorus tunnel field-effect transistor for low-power switches

Nature Nanotechnology volume 15, pages 203–206 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The continuous down-scaling of transistors has been the key to the successful development of current information technology. However, with Moore’s law reaching its limits, the development of alternative transistor architectures is urgently needed1. Transistors require a switching voltage of at least 60 mV for each tenfold increase in current, that is, a subthreshold swing (SS) of 60 mV per decade (dec). Alternative tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) are widely studied to achieve a sub-thermionic SS and high I60 (the current where SS becomes 60 mV dec–1)2. Heterojunction (HJ) TFETs show promise for delivering a high I60, but experimental results do not meet theoretical expectations due to interface problems in the HJs constructed from different materials. Here, we report a natural HJ-TFET with spatially varying layer thickness in black phosphorus without interface problems. We have achieved record-low average SS values over 4–5 dec of current (SSave_4dec ~22.9 mV dec–1 and SSave_5dec ~26.0 mV dec–1) with record-high I60 (I60 = 0.65–1 μA μm–1), paving the way for application in low-power switches.

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Fig. 1: BP band properties and transfer curves for two fabricated BP NHJ-TFETs at |VD| ≤ 0.7 V.
Fig. 2: Temperature-dependent transfer curves originating from two different carrier injection mechanisms: BTBT and thermal injection.
Fig. 3: Performance comparison of the BP NHJ-TFETs with previous n-type TFETs reporting sub-thermionic SSave_4dec and a state-of-the-art Intel 14-nm Si MOSFET.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Kim, A. Seabaugh, R. Sajjad, E. Yablonovitch, F. Liu, G. Klimeck, H. J. Choi and E. H. Hwang for helpful discussions. We also thank C. Lee for help with the dry-transfer technique. S. Cho acknowledges support from the Korea NRF (Grant no. 2019M3F3A1A03079760 and Grant no. 2016R1A5A1008184) and the KI 2019 Transdisciplinary Research Program. K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by MEXT, Japan, A3 Foresight by JSPS and CREST (JPMJCR15F3), JST.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea

    Seungho Kim, Gyuho Myeong, Wongil Shin, Hongsik Lim, Boram Kim, Taehyeok Jin & Sungjae Cho

  2. Measurement and Analysis Team, National Nanofab Center, Daejeon, Korea

    Sungjin Chang

  3. National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi

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  1. Seungho Kim
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Contributions

S. Cho conceived and supervised the project. S.K. fabricated devices and performed measurements. G.M. and W.S. assisted with fabrication of devices. G.M. and S. Chang assisted with the Raman and photoluminescence measurement of the BP flakes. K.W. and T.T. grew high-quality hBN single crystals. G.M., W.S., H.L., B.K. and T.J. assisted with the low-temperature transport measurements. S. Cho and S.K. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. All the authors contributed to editing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sungjae Cho.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–20, Table 1 and refs. 1–41.

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Kim, S., Myeong, G., Shin, W. et al. Thickness-controlled black phosphorus tunnel field-effect transistor for low-power switches. Nat. Nanotechnol. 15, 203–206 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0623-7

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