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Letter

High-Speed Memory from Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistors with High-κ Gate Dielectric

Supporting Info

Marcus Rinki

^†, Andreas Johansson^†, G. S. Paraoanu^‡ and P

ivi T

*^§

Department of Physics, Nanoscience Center, University of Jyv

skyl

, P.O. Box 35, 40014 Jyv

skyl

, Finland, and Low Temperature Laboratory and Department of Applied Physics, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 5100, 02015 Helsinki, Finland

Nano Lett., 2009, 9 (2), pp 643–647

DOI: 10.1021/nl8029916

Publication Date (Web): January 16, 2009

* Corresponding author: tel, +358 94518490; fax, +358 94513517; e-mail paivi.torma@hut.fi., †

University of Jyvskyl.

, ‡

Low Temperature Laboratory, HUT.

, §

Department of Applied Physics, HUT.

Abstract

We demonstrate 100 ns write/erase speed of single-walled carbon nanotube field-effect transistor (SWCNT-FET) memory elements. With this high operation speed, SWCNT-FET memory elements can compete with state of the art commercial Flash memories in this figure of merit. The endurance of the memory elements is shown to exceed 10⁴ cycles. The SWCNT-FETs have atomic layer deposited hafnium oxide as a gate dielectric, and the devices are passivated by another hafnium oxide layer in order to reduce surface chemistry effects. We discuss a model where the hafnium oxide has defect states situated above, but close in energy to, the band gap of the SWCNT. The fast and efficient charging and discharging of these defects is a likely explanation for the observed operation speed of 100 ns which greatly exceeds the SWCNT-FET memory speeds of 10 ms observed earlier for devices with conventional gate oxides.

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