Nanoelectronics beyond silicon

The further scaling of silicon devices will hit some roadblocks in the future that may not be overcome by standard technology. The introduction of new materials into silicon technology may help for a while, but integration issues have to be solved in advance. Improvements can, however, also be achieved by new material configurations like nanocrystals that are not formed by subtractive patterning techniques but by self-organized bottom-up approaches. In this paper, we address the prospects for nanoelectronics to exploit the tremendous possibilities of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). A brief introduction of the CNT basics and growth methods will be given. A comparison of state-of-the-art silicon MOSFETs with CNT-FETs highlights the significantly better performance of CNT devices. However, the patterning of CNT devices is still an unsolved problem. Some of the most promising fabrication techniques are assessed with respect to integration into a silicon-like technology. Finally, a new device is presented that circumvents the selection and placement problems of CNTs for stand alone transistors. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.