Транзистор з кристалічного оксиду індію/Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Sciences of the University of Tokyo have developed powerful transistor, by replacing silicon with a crystalline material — gallium-doped indium oxide.
The transistor uses a gate-all-around design, in which the control gate completely covers the current channel, allowing electrons to gain high mobility and ensuring long-term stability. According to the Japanese researchers, indium oxide is capable of creating a highly ordered crystal structure that allows electric charges to move more efficiently.
«We also wanted our crystalline oxide transistor to have a «gate-all-around» structure, in which the gate that turns the current on or off surrounds the channel through which the current flows. By wrapping the gate completely around the channel, we can increase efficiency and scalability compared to traditional gates,», — explains the lead author of the study Anlan Chen.
To eliminate defects in the indium oxide material that reduce stability, it was doped with gallium. The team used atomic layer deposition to cover the transistor channel area around the gate with a thin film of gallium doped indium oxide, one atomic layer at a time.
After deposition, the film was heated to acquire the crystalline structure necessary to ensure increased electron mobility. As a result, the following were created metal oxide field effect transistor with a gate-all-around design.
«Our gate-all-around MOSFET containing a gallium-doped indium oxide layer achieves a high mobility of 44.5 m²/V·s. Most importantly, the device demonstrates promising reliability, operating stably under applied voltage for nearly three hours. In fact, our MOSFET outperformed similar devices reported previously», — emphasizes Dr. Anlan Chen.
The research is a step towards developing reliable high-density electronic components suitable for applications with high computing requirements, such as large data centers and artificial intelligence-based systems.