In-situ p-Doping of Nanometer Tellurium-based Oxide for Room-Temperature CMOS Circuits.

Abstract

The development of high-performance p-type oxide semiconductors is crucial for scalable CMOS technologies, yet conventional oxides remain intrinsically difficult to p-dope owing to the localized nature of oxygen orbitals and strong defect compensation. Here, we report a reaction-metal-mediated redox strategy that exploits the deposition environment for intrinsic in situ p-type doping of tellurium oxide. Mo-assisted reduction produces nanometer Te-based oxide films with tunable Te nanochannels, which form percolative pathways that markedly enhance hole transport. Remarkably, films deposited at room temperature (RT) achieve mobilities above 10 cm² V^-1 s^-1 and carrier densities tunable over more than five orders of magnitude. Co-integration with n-type oxide transistors enables the fabrication of all-oxide CMOS circuits entirely at RT with robust logic functionality. This intrinsically regulated doping pathway provides a generalizable route to overcome long-standing bottlenecks in p-type oxides and advance oxide semiconductors toward large-area, flexible CMOS electronics.