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High performance ring oscillators from 10-nm wide silicon nanowire field-effect transistors

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Abstract

We explore 10-nm wide Si nanowire (SiNW) field-effect transistors (FETs) for logic applications, via the fabrication and testing of SiNW-based ring oscillators. We report on SiNW surface treatments and dielectric annealing, for producing SiNW FETs that exhibit high performance in terms of large on/off-state current ratio (∼108), low drain-induced barrier lowering (∼30 mV) and low subthreshold swing (∼80 mV/decade). The performance of inverter and ring-oscillator circuits fabricated from these nanowire FETs are also explored. The inverter demonstrates the highest voltage gain (∼148) reported for a SiNW-based NOT gate, and the ring oscillator exhibits near rail-to-rail oscillation centered at 13.4 MHz. The static and dynamic characteristics of these NW devices indicate that these SiNW-based FET circuits are excellent candidates for various high-performance nanoelectronic applications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, MC 136-93, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA

    Ruo-Gu Huang

  2. Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, MC 127-72, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA

    Douglas Tham & James R. Heath

  3. Department of Chemistry, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Ave, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, 02467, USA

    Dunwei Wang

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  1. Ruo-Gu Huang
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  2. Douglas Tham
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  3. Dunwei Wang
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  4. James R. Heath
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Correspondence to James R. Heath.

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Huang, RG., Tham, D., Wang, D. et al. High performance ring oscillators from 10-nm wide silicon nanowire field-effect transistors. Nano Res. 4, 1005–1012 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-011-0157-2

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