Modeling Trilayer Graphene-Based DET Characteristics for a Nanoscale Sensor

Introduction

Graphene is a promising nanomaterial with outstanding physical and electrical properties that offers a wide range of opportunities for advanced applications in nanoelectronics (Dragoman, 2009; Rahmani et al., 2013; Dong, 2011). The application of graphene nanoribbon (GNR) in high-speed electronics is being explored extensively because of some excellent properties such as one-atom thickness, mechanical strength, flexibility, high thermal conductivity up to 50 W cm ^–1 K ^–1, extremely highcurrent-carrying capacity up to 10 ⁹ A/cm ², high carrier mobility in excess of 200,000 cm ² V ^–1 s ^–1, high carrier saturation velocity 3 of ∼5×10 ⁷cm s ^–1, and extraordinarily rapid charge-carrier transportwhich is intrinsically ambipolar, meaning that both positive and negative carriers are important (Castro Neto, 2009; Dong, 2010; Xie, 2009; Ahmadi, 2012; Rahmani et al., 2013; Craciun, 2011). Trilayer graphene nanoribbon (TGN) as one of the most common multilayers of graphene is taken into consideration in this study. TGN has attracted enormous attention from material scientists and device engineers because of its exceptional electronic properties (Craciun et al., 2009; Rutter, 2008; Rahmani, 2012). The scaling of field effect transistors (FETs) at nanoscale assures better performance of the device. The phenomenon of downsizing the device dimensions has led to challenges such as short channel effects, leakage current, interconnect difficulties, high power consumption and quantum effects (Rahmani, 2012). Therefore, new materials and device structures are needed as alternatives to overcome these challenges. According to the TGN structure, it can satisfy our main requirement of a channel in nanoscale FETs. Major advances have been attained in understanding device physics and improving device performance for TGNFET (Shengjun, 2010; Rahmani, 2013). In this study, we evaluate the ultimate device performance when the ABA-stacked TGNis applied to the FET channel. Figure 1 shows the cross sectional view of the proposed TGNFET.

Figure 1.

(a) ABA-stacked TGN as a one-dimensional material; (b) A schematic of implemented TGN in FET