title: A steep-slope transistor based on abrupt electronic phase transition.
abstract: Collective interactions in functional materials can enable novel macroscopic properties like insulator-to-metal transitions. While implementing such materials into field-effect-transistor technology can potentially augment current state-of-the-art devices by providing unique routes to overcome their conventional limits, attempts to harness the insulator-to-metal transition for high-performance transistors have experienced little success. Here, we demonstrate a pathway for harnessing the abrupt resistivity transformation across the insulator-to-metal transition in vanadium dioxide (VO2), to design a hybrid-phase-transition field-effect transistor that exhibits gate controlled steep ('sub-kT/q') and reversible switching at room temperature. The transistor design, wherein VO2 is implemented in series with the field-effect transistor's source rather than into the channel, exploits negative differential resistance induced across the VO2 to create an internal amplifier that facilitates enhanced performance over a conventional field-effect transistor. Our approach enables low-voltage complementary n-type and p-type transistor operation as demonstrated here, and is applicable to other insulator-to-metal transition materials, offering tantalizing possibilities for energy-efficient logic and memory applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Nikhil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shukla
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Arun V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Thathachary
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Ashish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Agrawal
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
authors.forename: Hanjong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Paik
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Ahmedullah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aziz
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA [2] Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
authors.forename: Darrell G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Schlom
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Sumeet Kumar
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Roman
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Engel-Herbert
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Suman
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Datta