TY - JOUR
T1 - Metal-Air Transistors
T2 - Semiconductor-Free Field-Emission Air-Channel Nanoelectronics
AU - Nirantar, Shruti
AU - Ahmed, Taimur
AU - Ren, Guanghui
AU - Gutruf, Philipp
AU - Xu, Chenglong
AU - Bhaskaran, Madhu
AU - Walia, Sumeet
AU - Sriram, Sharath
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2018/12/12
Y1 - 2018/12/12
N2 - Scattering-free transport in vacuum tubes has always been superior to solid-state transistors. It is the advanced fabrication with mass production capability at low cost which drove solid-state nanoelectronics. Here, we combine the best of vacuum tubes with advanced nanofabrication technology. We present nanoscale, metal-based, field emission air channel transistors. Comparative analysis of tungsten-, gold-, and platinum-based devices is presented. Devices are fabricated with electron beam lithography, achieving channel lengths less than 35 nm. With this small channel length, vacuum-like carrier transport is possible in air under room temperature and pressure. Source and drain electrodes have planar, symmetric, and sharp geometry. Because of this, devices operate in bidirection with voltages <2 V and current values in few tens of nanoamperes range. The experimental data shows that influential operation mechanism is Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling in tungsten and gold devices, while Schottky emission in platinum device. The presented work enables a technology where metal-based switchable nanoelectronics can be created on any dielectric surface with low energy requirements.
AB - Scattering-free transport in vacuum tubes has always been superior to solid-state transistors. It is the advanced fabrication with mass production capability at low cost which drove solid-state nanoelectronics. Here, we combine the best of vacuum tubes with advanced nanofabrication technology. We present nanoscale, metal-based, field emission air channel transistors. Comparative analysis of tungsten-, gold-, and platinum-based devices is presented. Devices are fabricated with electron beam lithography, achieving channel lengths less than 35 nm. With this small channel length, vacuum-like carrier transport is possible in air under room temperature and pressure. Source and drain electrodes have planar, symmetric, and sharp geometry. Because of this, devices operate in bidirection with voltages <2 V and current values in few tens of nanoamperes range. The experimental data shows that influential operation mechanism is Fowler-Nordheim tunnelling in tungsten and gold devices, while Schottky emission in platinum device. The presented work enables a technology where metal-based switchable nanoelectronics can be created on any dielectric surface with low energy requirements.
KW - Air-channel transistor
KW - field emission
KW - metal transistors
KW - semiconductor-free nanoelectronics
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02849
DO - 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b02849
M3 - Article
C2 - 30441900
AN - SCOPUS:85058318270
VL - 18
SP - 7478
EP - 7484
JO - Nano Letters
JF - Nano Letters
SN - 1530-6984
IS - 12
ER -