Ultrahigh Frequency Carbon Nanotube Transistor Based on a Single Nanotube

Abstract

Single-walled carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNT FETs) are predicted to have intrinsic cutoff frequencies approaching the THz range. Here ldquointrinsicrdquo means that the parasitic capacitance due to fringing fields is negligible compared to the gate-source capacitance required to modulate the conductance. In practice, although there are strategies proposed to mitigate this based on parallel arrays of CNT FETs, this parasitic capacitance dominates most geometries (even aligned arrays to date). In this work we show nanotube transistor performance with maximum stable gain above 1 GHz (even including the parasitics) by combining ldquoon-chiprdquo the electrical properties of 100 CNT FETs fabricated on one long nanotube. This also solves the problem of impedance matching by boosting the on current to a large (mA) value, and at the same time allows one to extract properties of each individual CNT FET, since they are identical in electrical characteristics as they are made out of the same CNT. This strategy opens the door to applications of carbon nanotube devices in the RF and microwave frequency range, a technologically relevant portion of the spectrum for both wired and wireless electronics, that has been (until now) incompatible with nanotube device technology.