Flexible Carbon Nanotube Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Integrated Circuits with Ultrastrong Radiation Resistance.

Abstract

Developing complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits (ICs) combining high flexibility and ultrastrong radiation tolerance features will expand conventional chips into ever-increasing extreme applications. Here, we develop a technology to fabricate flexible CMOS field-effect transistors (FETs) and ICs with ultrastrong radiation tolerance based on a semiconducting carbon nanotube (CNT) film via a system technology co-optimization strategy encompassing materials, fabrication process, device structure, circuit architecture, and passivation/encapsulation. The fabricated CNT CMOS FETs exhibit high and symmetric performances, excellent flexibility, and especially recorded radiation tolerance to total ionizing doses up to 24 Mrad (Si), and then flexible and strong radiation-tolerant ICs including inverters, ring oscillators, and static random-access memory cells have been demonstrated. Notably, high-energy irradiation introduces two competing effects where it causes damage but also reduces gate interface state density to improve the performance of the ICs. These findings position flexible CNT CMOS technology as a promising candidate for use in electronics in extreme environments.