Identifying atomically thin isolated-band channels for intrinsic steep-slope transistors by high-throughput study

Hengze Qu; Shengli Zhang; Jiang Cao; Zhenhua Wu; Yang Chai; Weisheng Li; Lain-Jong Li; Wencai Ren; Xinran Wang; Haibo Zeng

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2024.03.017

Identifying atomically thin isolated-band channels for intrinsic steep-slope transistors by high-throughput study

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2024 Mar 9:S2095-9273(24)00161-0. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.03.017. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Hengze Qu¹, Shengli Zhang², Jiang Cao³, Zhenhua Wu⁴, Yang Chai⁵, Weisheng Li⁶, Lain-Jong Li⁷, Wencai Ren⁸, Xinran Wang⁹, Haibo Zeng¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ MIIT Key Laboratory of Advanced Display Materials and Devices, College of Material Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China.
² MIIT Key Laboratory of Advanced Display Materials and Devices, College of Material Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. Electronic address: zhangslvip@njust.edu.cn.
³ School of Electronic and Optical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Microelectronics Device and Integrated Technology, Institute of Microelectronics of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
⁵ Department of Applied Physics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 999077, Hong Kong, China.
⁶ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Electronic Science and Engineering and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
⁷ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China.
⁸ Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
⁹ National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Electronic Science and Engineering and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China; School of Integrated Circuits, Nanjing University, Suzhou 215163, China; Suzhou Laboratory, Suzhou 215009, China.
¹⁰ MIIT Key Laboratory of Advanced Display Materials and Devices, College of Material Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. Electronic address: zeng.haibo@njust.edu.cn.

PMID: 38531717
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2024.03.017

Abstract

Developing low-power FETs holds significant importance in advancing logic circuits, especially as the feature size of MOSFETs approaches sub-10 nanometers. However, this has been restricted by the thermionic limitation of SS, which is limited to 60 mV per decade at room temperature. Herein, we proposed a strategy that utilizes 2D semiconductors with an isolated-band feature as channels to realize sub-thermionic SS in MOSFETs. Through high-throughput calculations, we established a guiding principle that combines the atomic structure and orbital interaction to identify their sub-thermionic transport potential. This guides us to screen 192 candidates from the 2D material database comprising 1608 systems. Additionally, the physical relationship between the sub-thermionic transport performances and electronic structures is further revealed, which enables us to predict 15 systems with promising device performances for low-power applications with supply voltage below 0.5 V. This work opens a new way for the low-power electronics based on 2D materials and would inspire extensive interests in the experimental exploration of intrinsic steep-slope MOSFETs.

Keywords: 2D materials; DFT-NEGF calculations; Electronic band structures; Steep-slope transistors; Transport properties.