Sub-60 mV/decade switching with a cold metal as the injection source

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that using cold metal contacts in FETs can achieve sub-60 mV/decade subthreshold swing at room temperature, surpassing thermionic limits and improving energy efficiency.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of cold metal injection sources, specifically 2D TMD cold metals, to break the thermionic limit in FETs, supported by quantum transport simulations.

Findings

Subthreshold swing below 60 mV/decade at room temperature.

TMD cold metals as injection sources enable efficient switching.

Potential for energy-efficient transistor applications.

Abstract

Power dissipation is a great challenge for the continuous scaling down and performance improvement of CMOS technology, due to thermionic current switching limit of conventional MOSFETs. In this work, we show that this problem can be overcome by using cold metals as the transistor's injection source, which are different from conventional metals and can filter high energy electrons to break the Boltzmann tyranny. It is proved that the subthreshold swing (SS) of thermionic current of transistor using cold metal contact can be extremely smaller than 60 mV/decade at room temperature. Specifically, two-dimensional (2D) transition metal chalcogenide (TMD) cold metals of NbX$_2$ and TaX$_2$(X=S, Se, Te) are proposed as the injection source of FETs. Quantum transport simulations indicate that promising switching efficiency and on-state current can be achieved using TMD cold metal injection source, which is beneficial for energy efficient applications.