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Carbon nanotube network film-based ring oscillators with sub 10-ns propagation time and their applications in radio-frequency signal transmission

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Abstract

We have fabricated top-gated ambipolar field-effect transistors (FETs) based on solution-derived carbon nanotube (CNT) network films, and then constructed inverters and ring oscillators (ROs) that can work under supply voltages as low as 0.2 V owing to the high uniformity of the devices. Significant improvements were achieved in the performance of these CNT-based ambipolar FETs and CMOS-like circuits by scaling down the gate length of the CNT FETs and optimizing the device structure and RO layout. In particular, the optimized five-stage RO is shown to present a record high oscillation frequency of up to 17.4 MHz with a propagation time of 5.6 ns at a 12-V working voltage. The CNT film-based ROs were used as carrier-wave generators in radio-frequency systems to demonstrate a complete signal transmission process. These results suggest that CNT thin film-based FETs and integrated circuits may soon find their way to radio-frequency applications with a frequency band of 13.56 MHz.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFA0201901), the National Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61376126, 61321001 and 61427901), and the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (No. D161100002616001-3).

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  1. Yingjun Yang and Li Ding contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Department of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Yingjun Yang, Li Ding, Hengjia Chen, Jie Han, Zhiyong Zhang & Lian-Mao Peng

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  1. Yingjun Yang
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  2. Li Ding
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Correspondence to Zhiyong Zhang or Lian-Mao Peng.

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12274_2017_1632_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Carbon nanotube network film-based ring oscillators with sub 10-ns propagation time and their applications in radio-frequency signal transmission

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Yang, Y., Ding, L., Chen, H. et al. Carbon nanotube network film-based ring oscillators with sub 10-ns propagation time and their applications in radio-frequency signal transmission. Nano Res. 11, 300–310 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1632-1

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