Graphene Nanoribbon Tunnel Transistors

A graphene nanoribbon (GNR) tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) is proposed and modeled analytically. Ribbon widths between 3 and 10 nm are considered, corresponding to energy bandgaps in the range of 0.46 to 0.14 eV. It is shown that a 5-nm ribbon width TFET can switch from on to off with only 0.1-V gate swing. The transistor achieves 800 mu A/mu m ON-state current and 26 pA/mu m OFF-state current, with an effective subthreshold swing of 0.19 mV/dee. Compared to a projected 2009 nMOSFET, the GNR TFET can provide 5 x higher speed, 20 x lower dynamic power, and 280 000 x lower OFF-state power dissipation. The high performance of GNR TFETs results from their narrow bandgaps and their 1-D nature.