Dielectrophoresis-Based Positioning of Carbon Nanotubes for Wafer-Scale Fabrication of Carbon Nanotube Devices

Joevonte Kimbrough; Lauren Williams; Qunying Yuan; Zhigang Xiao

doi:10.3390/mi12010012

Dielectrophoresis-Based Positioning of Carbon Nanotubes for Wafer-Scale Fabrication of Carbon Nanotube Devices

Micromachines (Basel). 2020 Dec 25;12(1):12. doi: 10.3390/mi12010012.

Authors

Joevonte Kimbrough¹, Lauren Williams¹, Qunying Yuan², Zhigang Xiao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL 35762, USA.
² Department of Biological and Environmental Science, Alabama A&M University, Normal, AL 35762, USA.

Abstract

In this paper, we report the wafer-scale fabrication of carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNTFETs) with the dielectrophoresis (DEP) method. Semiconducting carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were positioned as the active channel material in the fabrication of carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNTFETs) with dielectrophoresis (DEP). The drain-source current (I_DS) was measured as a function of the drain-source voltage (V_DS) and gate-source voltage (V_GS) from each CNTFET on the fabricated wafer. The I_DS on/off ratio was derived for each CNTFET. It was found that 87% of the fabricated CNTFETs was functional, and that among the functional CNTFETs, 30% of the CNTFETs had an I_DS on/off ratio larger than 20 while 70% of the CNTFETs had an I_DS on/off ratio lower than 20. The highest I_DS on/off ratio was about 490. The DEP-based positioning of carbon nanotubes is simple and effective, and the DEP-based device fabrication steps are compatible with Si technology processes and could lead to the wafer-scale fabrication of CNT electronic devices.

Keywords: carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNTFETs); dielectrophoresis (DEP); semiconducting carbon nanotubes.

Abstract

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