Publications

The low voltage TFET demands higher perfection than previously required in electronics

Agarwal, Sapan A.; Yablonovitch, Eli

Tunneling Field Effect Transistors (TFETs) have the potential to achieve a low operating voltage by overcoming the thermally limited subthreshold swing of 60mV/decade, but results to date have been unsatisfying. Unfortunately, TFETs have only shown steep subthreshold swings at low currents of a nA/μm or lower while we would like a mA/μm. To understand this we need to consider the two switching mechanisms in a TFET. The gate voltage can be used to modulate the tunneling barrier thickness and thus the tunneling probability as shown Fig. 1(a). Alternatively, it is possible use energy filtering or density of states (DOS) switching as illustrated in Fig. 1(b). If the conduction and valence band don't overlap, no current can flow. Once they do overlap, current can flow.