Strain Engineering for Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Based Field Effect Transistors.

Using electrical characteristics from three-terminal field-effect transistors (FETs), we demonstrate substantial strain induced band gap tunability in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) in line with theoretical predictions and optical experiments. Devices were fabricated on flexible substrates, and a cantilever sample holder was used to apply uniaxial tensile strain to the various multilayer TMD FETs. Analyzing in particular transfer characteristics, we argue that the modified device characteristics under strain are clear evidence of a band gap reduction of 100 meV in WSe2 under 1.35% uniaxial tensile strain at room temperature. Furthermore, the obtained device characteristics imply that the band gap does not shrink uniformly under strain relative to a reference potential defined by the source/drain contacts. Instead, the band gap change is only related to a change of the conduction band edge of WSe2, resulting in a decrease in the Schottky barrier (SB) for electrons without any change for hole injection into the valence band. Simulations of SB device characteristics are employed to explain this point and to quantify our findings. Last, our experimental results are compared with DFT calculations under strain showing excellent agreement between theoretical predictions and the experimental data presented here.

Analysing black phosphorus transistors using an analytic Schottky barrier MOSFET model.

Owing to the difficulties associated with substitutional doping of low-dimensional nanomaterials, most field-effect transistors built from carbon nanotubes, two-dimensional crystals and other low-dimensional channels are Schottky barrier MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors). The transmission through a Schottky barrier-MOSFET is dominated by the gate-dependent transmission through the Schottky barriers at the metal-to-channel interfaces. This makes the use of conventional transistor models highly inappropriate and has lead researchers in the past frequently to extract incorrect intrinsic properties, for example, mobility, for many novel nanomaterials. Here we propose a simple modelling approach to quantitatively describe the transfer characteristics of Schottky barrier-MOSFETs from ultra-thin body materials accurately in the device off-state. In particular, after validating the model through the analysis of a set of ultra-thin silicon field-effect transistor data, we have successfully applied our approach to extract Schottky barrier heights for electrons and holes in black phosphorus devices for a large range of body thicknesses.

Origins and characteristics of the threshold voltage variability of quasiballistic single-walled carbon nanotube field-effect transistors.

Ultrascaled transistors based on single-walled carbon nanotubes are identified as one of the top candidates for future microprocessor chips as they provide significantly better device performance and scaling properties than conventional silicon technologies. From the perspective of the chip performance, the device variability is as important as the device performance for practical applications. This paper presents a systematic investigation on the origins and characteristics of the threshold voltage (VT) variability of scaled quasiballistic nanotube transistors. Analysis of experimental results from variable-temperature measurement as well as gate oxide thickness scaling studies shows that the random variation from fixed charges present on the oxide surface close to nanotubes dominates the VT variability of nanotube transistors. The VT variability of single-tube transistors has a figure of merit that is quantitatively comparable with that of current silicon devices; and it could be reduced with the adoption of improved device passivation schemes, which might be necessary for practical devices incorporating multiple nanotubes, whose area normalized VT variability becomes worse due to the synergic effects from the limited surface coverage of nanotubes and the nonlinearity of the device off-state leakage current, as predicted by the Monte Carlo simulation.