A vertical silicon-graphene-germanium transistor.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31653842.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-12814-1 and PMC identifier 6814790.
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Abstract
Graphene-base transistors have been proposed for high-frequency applications because of the negligible base transit time induced by the atomic thickness of graphene. However, generally used tunnel emitters suffer from high emitter potential-barrier-height which limits the transistor performance towards terahertz operation. To overcome this issue, a graphene-base heterojunction transistor has been proposed theoretically where the graphene base is sandwiched by silicon layers. Here we demonstrate a vertical silicon-graphene-germanium transistor where a Schottky emitter constructed by single-crystal silicon and single-layer graphene is achieved. Such Schottky emitter shows a current of 692 A cm<sup>-2</sup> and a capacitance of 41 nF cm<sup>-2</sup>, and thus the alpha cut-off frequency of the transistor is expected to increase from about 1 MHz by using the previous tunnel emitters to above 1 GHz by using the current Schottky emitter. With further engineering, the semiconductor-graphene-semiconductor transistor is expected to be one of the most promising devices for ultra-high frequency operation.