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Heterogeneous complementary field-effect transistors based on silicon and molybdenum disulfide

Nature Electronics volume 6, pages 37–44 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Complementary field-effect transistors—which have n-type and p-type field-effect transistors (FETs) vertically stacked on top of each other—can boost area efficiency in integrated circuits. However, silicon-based complementary FETs suffer from several issues, including difficulty in balancing electron and hole mobility. Here we report heterogeneous complementary FETs that combine p-type FETs made with silicon-on-insulator technology and n-type FETs made with two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). Through mobility matching and multiple-gate modulation of the MoS2, the mobility mismatch issue of fully silicon-based systems can be addressed. Our integration approach leverages the maturity of the silicon process, the low thermal budget of MoS2 and the low aspect ratio of the device structures to reduce process complexity and device degradation. We use the approach to create a complementary FET inverter that exhibits a voltage gain of 142.3 at a supply voltage of 3 V, and a voltage gain of 1.2 and power consumption of 64 pW at a supply voltage of 100 mV. We also develop a four-inch fabrication process for the silicon–two-dimensional complementary FETs.

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Fig. 1: Schematic and characterization of the 3D-stacked CFET.
Fig. 2: Electrical performances of the top layer nFET and the bottom layer pFET, and the heterogeneous CFET inverter.
Fig. 3: Advantages of SOI–MoS2 CFET in terms of nFET/pFET balance.
Fig. 4: Application of the SOI–MoS2 CFET as a ‘one-step’ optoelectronic device.

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Data availability

The data that supports the findings of this study are available at https://zenodo.org/record/7241056#.Y1UBsXZBxPY. All other data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The codes used for simulation and data plotting are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2021YFA1200500), the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (no. 2021-01-07-00-07-E00077), the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission (no. 1DZ1100900), the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission ‘Explorer Project’ under Grant 21TS1401300, Guangdong Province Research and Development in Key Fields from Guangdong Greater Bay Area Institute of Integrated Circuit and System(No.2021B0101280002) and Guangzhou City Research and Development Program in Key Field (No.20210302001). We also thank the support by the young scientist project of the MOE innovation platform.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Ling Tong, Jing Wan, Kai Xiao, Jian Liu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China

    Ling Tong, Jingyi Ma, Xiaojiao Guo, Xinyu Chen, Yin Xia, Wenzhong Bao & Peng Zhou

  2. School of Information Science and Technology, Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China

    Jing Wan, Kai Xiao & Jian Liu

  3. Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Center, Institute of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, P. R. China

    Lihui Zhou & Sheng Dai

  4. Six Caron Technology Ltd, Shenzhen, P. R. China

    Zihan Xu

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Contributions

J.W., W.B. and P.Z. conceived and supervised the project. L.T. wrote the manuscript, and J.W., W.B. and P.Z. revised the manuscript. K.X. and J.L. fabricated the SOI pFET and L.T. performed the rest of the CFET fabrication. L.T. performed the electrical and optoelectronic measurements and data processing with assistance from J.M. K.X. and J.L. performed the gas measurements. J.M. and X.G. performed the Raman spectra and photoluminescence spectra characterizations. L.Z. and S.D. performed the transmission electron microscopy characterization and analysis. Z.X. performed CVD growth and a part of transfer work of MoS2. J.W., K.X. and J.L. contributed to the technology computer-aided design simulation. All authors contributed to discussions.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jing Wan, Wenzhong Bao or Peng Zhou.

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Nature Electronics thanks Xiangbin Zeng and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–35, Notes 1–3, and Tables 1 and 2.

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Tong, L., Wan, J., Xiao, K. et al. Heterogeneous complementary field-effect transistors based on silicon and molybdenum disulfide. Nat Electron 6, 37–44 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-022-00881-0

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