Reconfigurable MoTe<sub>2</sub> Field-Effect Transistors and its Application in Compact CMOS Circuits
Jing Chen, Ping Li, Junqiang Zhu, Xiaoming Wu, Ran Liu, Jing Wan, Tian‐Ling Ren
Abstract
The outstanding physical and electrical properties of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) as semiconductor materials demonstrate a promising platform for future electronic devices. Among all the TMDs, MoTe <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> , in which the bandgap is close to that of the silicon (Si), is a more favorable candidate than others to be applied in next-generation integrated circuits (ICs). However, the conventional physical or chemical doping method is complicated for fabricating the MoTe <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> logic ICs. The transistors with additional polarity gates (PGs) are defined as polarity-controllable transistors (PCTs). The PG can dynamically control the type of charge carriers (n- or p-type) in the source/drain by electrostatic doping without the need of any physical or chemical doping, and thus reconfigure the transistor between n-type and p-type. In our work, the ambipolar conduction property in MoTe <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> enables the fabrication of high-quality polarity-controllable MoTe <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> transistors (PCMTs) that are promising as building blocks to construct the MoTe <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> logic ICs. The on/off ratios of the PCMTs are above 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">7</sup> for both n-type and p-type. The highest field-effect mobility μ of p- and n-type MoTe <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> transistors are 38 and 42, respectively. The inverter (INV) based on the PCMTs has achieved a high gain of 37. Furthermore, the logic-gate cell library, which includes INV, negative- AND (NAND), negative- OR (NOR), exclusive- OR (XOR), and maJority (MAJ) is demonstrated using PCMTs. The above-mentioned desirable properties make PCMTs promising for future applications in 2-D-semiconductor-material-based logic ICs.