Single ZnO nanowire based high-performance field effect transistors (FETs)

The electrical properties of single ZnO nanowire were examined by fabricating single nanowire based field effect transistors (FETs) via two approaches, i.e., back- and top-gate approaches by using electron beam lithography (EBL) and photolithography processes. The ZnO nanowires were synthesized by non-catalytic simple thermal evaporation process by using metallic zinc powder in the presence of oxygen. The as-grown ZnO nanowires were characterized in terms of their structural and optical properties which confirmed that the grown nanowires are well-crystallized with the wurtzite hexagonal phase and exhibiting good optical properties. The peak transconductances of the back- and top-gate FETs were approximately 3.2 and approximately 7.4 nS, respectively. The field effect mobilities (micro(eff)) for the back- and top-gate FETs were measured to be 3.4 and 7.87 cm2/V x s, respectively. Our studies conclude that the fabricated top-gate FETs exhibited higher and good electrical properties as compared to ZnO nanowire FETs fabricated using back-gate approaches.