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Terahertz metal–oxide–semiconductor transistors based on aligned carbon nanotube arrays

Nature Electronics volume 8, pages 949–958 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Films of aligned semiconducting carbon nanotubes could be used to build complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors for digital integrated circuits and radio-frequency transistors for terahertz analogue integrated circuits. However, the operating frequencies of such devices remains too low for potential application in the sixth generation of wireless communications. Here we report metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors that are based on aligned carbon nanotube films and have a cut-off frequency beyond 1 THz. By optimizing gate structures and fabrication processes, we create devices with a gate length of 80 nm that have a carrier mobility of over 3,000 cm2 V−1 s−1, as well as an on-state current of 3.02 mA µm−1, a peak transconductance of 1.71 mS μm−1 at a bias of −1 V, and a saturation velocity of 3.5 × 107 cm s−1. By introducing a Y-shaped gate, we also create devices with gate lengths of 35 nm that have an extrinsic cut-off frequency (fT) of up to 551 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency (fmax) of 1,024 GHz. Finally, we use devices with a gate length of 50 nm to fabricate mmWave-band (30 GHz) radio-frequency amplifiers that have a gain of up to 21.4 dB.

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Fig. 1: Structure and d.c. performance of A-CNT MOSFETs.
Fig. 2: Structure, d.c. and RF performance characteristics of A-CNT MOSFETs.
Fig. 3: Benchmarking of the RF performance of our A-CNT MOSFETs to those of other materials transistors.
Fig. 4: Characteristics of Y-gate structure in A-CNT MOSFETs.
Fig. 5: Performance of RF amplifiers based on A-CNT MOSFETs.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Key Research & Development Program (grant number 2022YFB4401603 to L.D.) and Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 62171004 to L.D., 92477201 to L.-M.P. and 62225101 to Z.Z.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jianshuo Zhou, Zipeng Pan.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices and Center for Carbon-based Electronics, School of Electronics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Jianshuo Zhou, Zipeng Pan, Li Ding, Lin Xu, Xiaohan Cheng, Haitao Li, Maguang Zhu, Lijun Liu, Huiwen Shi, Zhiyong Zhang & Lian-Mao Peng

  2. Hunan Institute of Advanced Sensing and Information Technology, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, China

    Li Ding, Chuanhong Jin, Zhiyong Zhang & Lian-Mao Peng

  3. Chongqing Institute of Carbon-based Integrated Circuits, Peking University, Chongqing, China

    Li Ding, Chuanhong Jin & Zhiyong Zhang

  4. Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Xiaohan Cheng, Huiwen Shi, Zhiyong Zhang & Lian-Mao Peng

  5. State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Fenfa Yao & Chuanhong Jin

  6. Frontiers Science Center for Nano-optoelectronics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Zhiyong Zhang

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Contributions

L.D., Z.Z. and L.-M.P. proposed and supervised the project. J.Z. participated in all aspects of this work, from device fabrication to characterization and data processing. L.X. performed the mobility and saturation velocity simulations using a virtual source model. X.C., H.L. and M.Z. were involved in the device fabrication. C.J. and F.Y. characterized the CNT materials. Z.P., L.L. and H.S. designed the multifinger structure of RF transistors. X.C. and Z.P. performed the small-signal model simulations, d.c. measurements and S-parameter measurements of the RF transistors. J.Z., Z.P., L.D., Z.Z. and L.-M.P. analysed the data and co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Li Ding, Zhiyong Zhang or Lian-Mao Peng.

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Nature Electronics thanks Jianshi Tang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Comparison of carrier saturated velocity.

Comparison of carrier saturated velocity of field effect transistors in this work and previous works based on CNT and other semiconductors.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Comparison of fT versus fmax.

Comparison of fT versus fmax between this work and those reported for group III–V, silicon and CNT based MOSFETs.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Output power and Comparison of P1dB output.

a, Output power versus input power curves for linearity measurement working at 30 GHz, with the maximum output power matching using a load-pull system. Output power of one decibel compression point is 11.4 dBm (as denoted as P1dB output) at the millimeter wave band and still have a power gain of 8.4 dB. Pout max is the measured maximum output power. For this figure, the bias condition is (Vgs,Vds) = (0.3,−1.6) V. b, Comparison of P1dB output for amplifiers based on A-CNTs2,6 and other conventional semiconductor materials7,8,9,10,11,12.

Extended Data Fig. 4

Measured (black dots) and simulated (red lines) and output curves of a CNT MOS FET.

Extended Data Table 1 Comparison of physical dimension of different gate structurest
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Key metrics for A-CNT array-based amplifier and other conventional semiconductor materials
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Figs. 1–23, Tables 1 and 2, Discussion Methods 1–3 and references.

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Zhou, J., Pan, Z., Ding, L. et al. Terahertz metal–oxide–semiconductor transistors based on aligned carbon nanotube arrays. Nat Electron 8, 949–958 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01463-6

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