A steep-slope transistor based on abrupt electronic phase transition

Nikhil Shukla, Arun V. Thathachary, Ashish Agrawal, Hanjong Paik, Ahmedullah Aziz, Darrell G. Schlom, Sumeet Kumar Gupta, Roman Engel-Herbert, Suman Datta

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

333 Scopus citations

Abstract

Collective interactions in functional materials can enable novel macroscopic properties like insulator-to-metal transitions. While implementing such materials into field-effect-transistor technology can potentially augment current state-of-the-art devices by providing unique routes to overcome their conventional limits, attempts to harness the insulator-to-metal transition for high-performance transistors have experienced little success. Here, we demonstrate a pathway for harnessing the abrupt resistivity transformation across the insulator-to-metal transition in vanadium dioxide (VO2), to design a hybrid-phase-transition field-effect transistor that exhibits gate controlled steep ('sub-kT/q') and reversible switching at room temperature. The transistor design, wherein VO2 is implemented in series with the field-effect transistor's source rather than into the channel, exploits negative differential resistance induced across the VO2 to create an internal amplifier that facilitates enhanced performance over a conventional field-effect transistor. Our approach enables low-voltage complementary n-type and p-type transistor operation as demonstrated here, and is applicable to other insulator-to-metal transition materials, offering tantalizing possibilities for energy-efficient logic and memory applications.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number7812
JournalNature communications
Volume6
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 7 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Chemistry
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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