Graphene Transistors: Status,

Prospects, and Problems

Brajesh Rawat
Research Scholar
Email-id: r.brajesh@iitg.ernet.in

Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology

Guwahati,Assam
6th November, 2014
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OUTLINE
Why is graphene popular these days?
What is really matter for FET?
Graphene properties relevant to transistors
Current status of graphene transistors
Graphene fabrication techniques
Conclusion
Reference

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Why Graphene is popular these days?

Transparent and bendable

Thinnest and lightest object

Its conduct electricity much

better than copper.

300 times stronger than steel

and harder than a diamond.

Arrangement of carbon atom on the graphene

Figure 1: Graphene sheet

Current technology trends may get replace by graphene 1 .

Source:http://graphene-flagship.eu
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Graphene Contd...
Graphene is the mother of all carbon-based systems.

Figure 2: Graphene: mother (top left), Graphite finds in our pencils is simply a stack
of graphene layers (top right), Carbon nanotubes are made of rolled-up sheets of
graphene (bottom left) and Buckminsterfullerene are spheres of wrapped-up graphene
(bottom right)1 .

Source: Neto A. et al. Phys World (2006).

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What is really matter for FET?

Figure 3: Conventional MOSFETs [1].

S.No Essential features

1
Logic
Transistor
(switch)
[1, 2]
2
Analog
Transistor
(amplify)
[1, 2]

Main FOM

Essential Re- Additional Requirement

quirements
Ion /Ioff in be- Bandgap
of Shorter
gate
tween 104 0.4eV.
and fast carri106
ers.
fT should be Current satura- Shorter gates,
in GHz (Most tion in output faster carriers
Applications) characteristics and lower series
and AV =30
resistance.
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Graphene properties relevant to transistors

Carrier mobility is much higher then III-V and Silicon at room

temperature [3].

High saturation velocity [4].

Electrons and holes behavior is same for electric field effect [3].

Ballistic Transport over a length of 0.4m [5].

High intrinsic carrier concentration and very high current density [3].

It is a self-cooling material [4].

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Challenges with Graphene for Transistor Applications

Conduction band

Zero bandgap limits minimum

channel conductivity in FET and
leads to a low Ion /Ioff ratio.

Weak saturation lower the intrinsic

gain.

Bulk and source/drain contact

effect the transports [4].

Energy

Bandgap

Valance band

k
Silicon Bandstructure

Energy

Conduction band

Fermi level

Valance band
k
Graphene Bandstructure

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Bandgap Openning in Graphene

The bandstructure of graphene can be modified following ways:

Graphene on substrate
Graphene nanoribbon (GNR)
Bilayer Graphene

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Graphene Bandgap on Substrate

Graphene Type

Size Bandgap Remark

SL graphene on SiO2

LA

No

Experimental and Theory [1]

SL graphene on SiO2

GNR

Yes

Experimental and Theory: Gap

due to lateral confinement [1]

BL graphene on SiO2

LA

Yes

Experimental and Theory:gap due

to symmetry breaking by perpendicular interlayer field [2]

Epitaxial SL

LA

Epitaxial BL

LA

Yes

Experimental and Theory [1]

Epitaxial SL,BL

GNR

Yes

Theory [1]

Stained SL

LA

Yes

Theory: gap due to level crossing

[1]

Graphene on h-BZ

LA

Yes

Experimental [6]

Unknown Controversial discussion* [1]

SL: Single layer,BL: Bilayer GNR: Graphene nanoribbon,LA:Large Area

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Performance comparison

S No. Graphene
Type

Bandgap I on /I off

fT

AV

Drawback

Nanoribbon 0.3-0.4eV 104 106 708GHz

FET [1, 2]
for LG =
50nm

20

Edge disorder and

edge
geometery
affect bandgap.

Bilayer
FET [7, 8]

0.2eV

100

....

35

Requires a larger
perpendicular
electric field

Larger area
FET [5]

2-5

427GHz
for LG =
67nm [2]

...

Nominal
SiMOSFETs

1.12eV

104 107 200GHz

for LG =
65nm [2]

Short channel effects.

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Electronic transport in graphene

Figure 5: Electron mobility versus bandgap for different materials (left) and electron
drift velocity versus electric field for common semiconductors (right) [1].

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Output characteristics for Si-MOSFETs and graphene

MOSFETs

Figure 6: Typical Output characteristics for conventional Si MOSFETs (left) and

larger area graphene MOSFETs (right) [1].

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Graphene transistor configurations

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Graphene Preparation

Most popular approaches to prepare graphene are [9]

1

Mechanical exfoliation of natural graphite using an adhesive

tape and transfer to oxidized Si wafers.

Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) by catalytic decomposition

of a gaseous precursor on transition metal substrates such as
nickel and copper.

Epitaxial growth on SiC substrate by desorption of Si.

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Conclusion

The primary challenge for the graphene devices is to create a

bandgap in a controlled and practical fashion.

During the past 4 years, it made a huge progress in the development of graphene transistors. Most impressive were the
demonstration of a GFET with 1.4 THz cut-off frequency and
GNR MOSFETs with excellent switch-off.

ITRS roadmap strongly recommends intensified research into

graphene.

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References I
[1] S. Frank, Graphene transistor, Nature Nanotechnology, vol. 5, no. 7, pp.
487496, 2010.
[2] F. Schwierz, Graphene transistors: Status, prospects, and problems,
Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 101, no. 7, pp. 15671584, July 2013.
[3] K. S. Novoselov, A. K. Geim, S. V. Morozov, D. Jiang, Y. Zhang, S. V. Dubonos,
I. V. Grigorieva, and A. A. Firsov, Electric field effect in atomically thin carbon
films, Science, vol. 306, no. 5696, pp. 666669, 2004.
[4] Y. Wu, D. Farmer, F. Xia, and P. Avouris, Graphene electronics: Materials,
devices, and circuits, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 101, no. 7, pp. 16201637,
July 2013.
[5] J. Chauhan and J. Guo, Assessment of high-frequency performance limits of
graphene field-effect transistors, Nano Research, vol. 4, no. 6, pp. 571579,
2011. [Online]. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12274-011-0113-1
[6] L. W. S. W. T. K. S. L. H. YoungA. F., MericI., Boron nitride substrates for
high-quality graphene electronics, Nature Nanotechnology, vol. 5, no. 10, pp.
722726, 2010.

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References II
[7] B. N. Szafranek, G. Fiori, D. Schall, D. Neumaier, and H. Kurz, Current
saturation and voltage gain in bilayer graphene field effect transistors, Nano
Letters, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 13241328, 2012.
[8] G. Fiori, D. Neumaier, B. Szafranek, and G. Iannaccone, Bilayer graphene
transistors for analog electronics, Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on,
vol. 61, no. 3, pp. 729733, March 2014.
[9] L. Colombo, R. Wallace, and R. Ruoff, Graphene growth and device integration,
Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 101, no. 7, pp. 15361556, July 2013.

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Thank You

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