Single-crystalline ZnO sheet Source-Gated Transistors

Due to their fabrication simplicity, fully compatible with low-cost large-area device assembly strategies, source-gated transistors (SGTs) have received significant research attention in the area of high-performance electronics over large area low-cost substrates. While usually based on either amorphous or polycrystalline silicon (α-Si and poly-Si, respectively) thin-film technologies, the present work demonstrate the assembly of SGTs based on single-crystalline ZnO sheet (ZS) with asymmetric ohmic drain and Schottky source contacts. Electrical transport studies of the fabricated devices show excellent field-effect transport behaviour with abrupt drain current saturation (IDS(SAT)) at low drain voltages well below 2 V, even at very large gate voltages. The performance of a ZS based SGT is compared with a similar device with ohmic source contacts. The ZS SGT is found to exhibit much higher intrinsic gain, comparable on/off ratio and low off currents in the sub-picoamp range. This approach of device assembly may form the technological basis for highly efficient low-power analog and digital electronics using ZnO and/or other semiconducting nanomaterial.