High-performance Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistors with High k Dielectric Gate Material

According to Moore's law the dimensions of individual devices in an integrated circuit have been decreased by a factor of approximately two every two years. This scaling down of devices has been the driving force in technological advances since late 20th century. However, as noted by ITRS 2009 edition, further scaling down has faced serious limits related to fabrication technology and device performances as the critical dimension shrunk down to sub-22 nm range. The limits involve electron tunneling through short channels and thin insulator films, the associated leakage currents, passive power dissipation, short channel effects, and variations in device structure and doping. These limits can be overcome to some extent and facilitate further scaling down of device dimensions by modifying the channel material in the traditional bulk MOSFET structure with a single carbon nanotube or an array of carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes field effect transistors (CNTFETs) are one of the most promising candidates for future nanoelectronics. In this paper, the review of CNTFETs is presented. The structure, operation and the characteristics of carbon nanotubes Field effect transistors have been discussed. In future, we expect the performance of CNTFETs will be better by improving CNT quality and on optimizing device structures.