Y. B. Yang

Scaling carbon nanotube complementary transistors to 5-nm gate lengths

Moving transistors downscale One option for extending the performance of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices based on silicon technology is to use semiconducting carbon nanotubes as the gates. Qiu et al. fabricated top-gated carbon nanotube field-effect transistors with a gate length of 5 nm. Thin graphene contacts helped maintain electrostatic control. A scaling trend study revealed that, compared with silicon CMOS devices, the nanotube-based devices operated much faster and at much lower supply voltage, and they approached the limit of one electron per switching operation. Science, this issue p. 271 Carbon nanotube field-effect transistors approach the quantum limit of one electron per switching operation. High-performance top-gated carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNT FETs) with a gate length of 5 nanometers can be fabricated that perform better than silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) FETs at the same scale. A scaling trend study revealed that the scaled CNT-based devices, which use graphene contacts, can operate much faster and at much lower supply voltage (0.4 versus 0.7 volts) and with much smaller subthreshold slope (typically 73 millivolts per decade). The 5-nanometer CNT FETs approached the quantum limit of FETs by using only one electron per switching operation. In addition, the contact length of the CNT CMOS devices was also scaled down to 25 nanometers, and a CMOS inverter with a total pitch size of 240 nanometers was also demonstrated.

Comprehensive study of the resistance switching in SrTiO3 and Nb-doped SrTiO3

We have demonstrated that the resistance switching (RS) effect can be controlled by the modification of the electrode configurations and the carrier densities in the Ag/SrTiO3 and Ag/Nb-doped SrTiO3(Nb:STO) structures. The elimination of the Schottky junction in the metal/Nb:STO completely destroys the RS effect, which suggests that the RS effect originates from the modification of Schottky-like barrier formed at the interface of metal/Nb:STO. The rectifying I-V curves revealed that the change in resistance was attributed to the trapping or detrapping carriers at the interface. The carrier density plays an important role in the determination of RS effect. The presence of the RS in SrTiO3 requires an appropriate doping level to provide conditions for trapping carriers at the interface.

Anisotropic nanocrystalline MnBi with high coercivity at high temperature

Magnetic hard nanocrystalline MnBi has been prepared by melt spinning and subsequent low temperature annealing. A coercivity of 2.5 T can be achieved at 540 K for MnBi with an average grain size of about 20-30 nm. The coercivity iHc, mainly controlled by the coherent magnetization rotation, shows a strong dependence on the time of grinding and exhibits a positive temperature coefficient from 100 up to 540 K. The unique temperature dependent behavior of the coercivity (magnetocrystalline anisotropy) has a relationship with the variations in the crystal lattice ratio of c/a with temperatures. In addition, discontinuity can not be found in the lattice parameters of a, c, and c/a ratio at the magnetostructural transition temperature. The nanocrystalline MnBi powder fixed in an epoxy resin and under an applied magnetic field of 24 kOe shows a maximum energy product of 7.1 MGOe at room temperature and shows anisotropic characteristics with high Mr/Ms ratio up to 560 K.

Electrical conductivity enhancement in nanocrystalline (RE2O3)0.08(ZrO2)0.92 (RE=Sc, Y) thin films

Dense, crack-free, uniform, and homogeneous (RE2O3)0.08(ZrO2)0.92u200a(RE=Sc,u200aY) nanocrystalline thin films were fabricated by a simple sol-gel method and characterized by impedance studies. At temperatures beyond 600u200a°C, the electrical conductivity of (Sc2O3)0.08(ZrO2)0.92 and (Y2O3)0.08(ZrO2)0.92 nanocrystals in pure cubic phase was ten times higher than that of the corresponding bulk materials. The decrease of grain boundary resistance related to interfacial effect is predominately responsible for the electrical conductivity enhancement.

Preparation and magnetic properties of MnBi

MnBi with low temperature phase was fabricated by melt-spinning and subsequently annealing. The influence of quenching speeds, compositions and annealing conditions on the formation of low temperature phase MnBi was systematically investigated. It was found the amorphous MnBi ribbons could transform into low temperature phase by heat treatment in a temperature range of 533–593 K. The coercivity of MnBi was greatly improved by porphyrization, and exhibited a positive temperature coefficient. The maximum energy product BHmax of the anisotropic bonded magnet is 7.1 MGOe (56 kJ/m3) and 4.0 MGOe (32 kJ/m3) at room temperature and 400 K.

Carbon Nanotube Feedback-Gate Field-Effect Transistor: Suppressing Current Leakage and Increasing On/Off Ratio

Field-effect transistors (FETs) based on moderate or large diameter carbon nanotubes (CNTs) usually suffer from ambipolar behavior, large off-state current and small current on/off ratio, which are highly undesirable for digital electronics. To overcome these problems, a feedback-gate (FBG) FET structure is designed and tested. This FBG FET differs from normal top-gate FET by an extra feedback-gate, which is connected directly to the drain electrode of the FET. It is demonstrated that a FBG FET based on a semiconducting CNT with a diameter of 1.5 nm may exhibit low off-state current of about 1 × 10(-13) A, high current on/off ratio of larger than 1 × 10(8), negligible drain-induced off-state leakage current, and good subthreshold swing of 75 mV/DEC even at large source-drain bias and room temperature. The FBG structure is promising for CNT FETs to meet the standard for low-static-power logic electronics applications, and could also be utilized for building FETs using other small band gap semiconductors to suppress leakage current.

High-Performance Complementary Transistors and Medium-Scale Integrated Circuits Based on Carbon Nanotube Thin Films

Solution-derived carbon nanotube (CNT) network films with high semiconducting purity are suitable materials for the wafer-scale fabrication of field-effect transistors (FETs) and integrated circuits (ICs). However, it is challenging to realize high-performance complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) FETs with high yield and stability on such CNT network films, and this difficulty hinders the development of CNT-film-based ICs. In this work, we developed a doping-free process for the fabrication of CMOS FETs based on solution-processed CNT network films, in which the polarity of the FETs was controlled using Sc or Pd as the source/drain contacts to selectively inject carriers into the channels. The fabricated top-gated CMOS FETs showed high symmetry between the characteristics of n- and p-type devices and exhibited high-performance uniformity and excellent scalability down to a gate length of 1 μm. Many common types of CMOS ICs, including typical logic gates, sequential circuits, and arithmetic units, were constructed based on CNT films, and the fabricated ICs exhibited rail-to-rail outputs because of the high noise margin of CMOS circuits. In particular, 4-bit full adders consisting of 132 CMOS FETs were realized with 100% yield, thereby demonstrating that this CMOS technology shows the potential to advance the development of medium-scale CNT-network-film-based ICs.

Trap-assisted tunneling resistance switching effect in CeO2/La0.7(Sr0.1Ca0.9)0.3MnO3 heterostructure

We reported the resistance switching (RS) behavior in the epitaxially grown CeO2/ La0.7(Sr0.1Ca0.9)0.3MnO3 (CeO2/LSCMO) heterojunctions on SrTiO3 substrate. The CeO2/LSCMO device displayed improved switching characteristics as compared to that of metal/manganite device. The switching threshold voltage showed a strong dependence on the thickness of the CeO2 layer, where a minimum/maximum thickness was required for the appearance of the resistance switching. Both set and reset threshold voltages increase with the increase of the CeO2 layer thickness due to the trap-assisted electron tunneling effect. In the meantime, the defects or vacancies in the CeO2 films, in particular, the concentration of the defects or vacancies in the interface between CeO2 and LSCMO, have a significant impact on the switching effect. These results suggest that the electron tunneling accompanied by a trapping/detrapping process at the interface is likely responsible for the RS effect in the insulator/manganite system.

Structure and exchange bias of Ni50Mn37Sn13 ribbons

Ni50Mn37Sn13 ribbons were produced by the melt-spinning method. Structure and magnetic measurements on the Ni50Mn37Sn13 ribbons indicated that it is ferromagnetic below 340 K and undergoes an austenitic-to-martensitic phase transition just below room temperature. The austenitic phase has the cubic L21 structure, with the excess manganese atoms occupying the 4(b) sites. The martensitic phase has an orthorhombic structure. With increasing applied magnetic field, the martensite start temperature Ms and martensite finish temperature Mf shift to lower temperatures because of the field-induced phase transition. The exchange-bias effect is observed and strongly varied with different cooling fields at low temperature. At 5 K, the exchange-bias field reaches a maximum of 290u2009Oe when the cooling field increases to 200u2009Oe, and then reduces sluggishly with further increase of the cooling field because of weakening of exchange coupling between antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic interfaces.

Modularized Construction of General Integrated Circuits on Individual Carbon Nanotubes

While constructing general integrated circuits (ICs) with field-effect transistors (FETs) built on individual CNTs is among few viable ways to build ICs with small dimension and high performance that can be compared with that of state-of-the-art Si based ICs, this has not been demonstrated owing to the absence of valid and well-tolerant fabrication method. Here we demonstrate a modularized method for constructing general ICs on individual CNTs with different electric properties. A pass-transistor-logic style 8-transistor (8-T) unit is built, demonstrated as a multifunctional function generator with good tolerance to inhomogeneity in the CNTs used and used as a building block for constructing general ICs. As an example, an 8-bits BUS system that is widely used to transfer data between different systems in a computer is constructed. This is the most complicated IC fabricated on individual CNTs to date, containing 46 FETs built on six individual semiconducting CNTs. The 8-T unit provides a good basis for constructing complex ICs to explore the potential and limits of CNT ICs given the current imperfection in available CNT materials and may also be developed into a universal and efficient way for constructing general ICs on ideal CNT materials in the future.