Advances in piezotronic transistors and piezotronics

Innovative technologies beyond or can augment the conventional metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-based technology to achieve adaptive and seamless interactions between electronics/machine and human/ambient are urgently needed for smart systems. Piezotronic transistors are a new type of devices designed using completely different principles from CMOS-based technology, which utilize inner-crystal piezoelectric potential as the gate controlling signal to control the electrical transport process, which have been widely demonstrated for the third-generation semiconductors (such as ZnO, GaN). Such devices are innovative in a way that the traditional external channel-width gating is replaced by an inner interface gating or inner channel-width gating. These nanodevices and integrated nanosystems show great potential to achieve complementary functionalities to the state-of-the-art CMOS technology. Coupling the piezoelectricity and the electrical transport process in piezoelectric semiconductors results in the emerging field of piezotronics, which show promises for advanced nano-electromechanical devices and micro/nanoelectromechanical systems. This manuscript reviews the advances in piezotronic transistors, provides an overview of the development and gives in-depth understandings in the new area of piezotronics. A perspective is given about their further development and potential applications in energy harvesting, active electronics and intelligent sensing. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Piezotronic transistors are innovative devices utilizing inner-crystal piezoelectric potential to control the electrical transport process, offering complementary functionalities to traditional CMOS technology. They show great potential in energy harvesting, active electronics, and intelligent sensing applications.