Ternary Field-Effect Transistor by Antiferroelectric Gating

The exponential surge in demand for high-efficiency, low-latency data processing has created an urgent need for "more-than-Moore" strategies to enable high-throughput computing. Ternary logic offers inherent advantages in data density, interconnection complexity, and computational throughput, but existing implementations are overly complex and rely on multiple binary transistors combined with additional components to achieve ternary states. This paper presents a ternary field-effect transistor using antiferroelectric gating, which provides distinct ternary conduction states at the single-transistor level that are robust and dynamically reconfigurable. A simple inverter based on a single ternary transistor is also demonstrated, which reduces transition time by 82% compared with a much more complex complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor device. Antiferroelectric field-effect ternary transistors may pave the way for broad adoption of ternary logic systems.