Effects of bias stress on ZnO nanowire field-effect transistors fabricated with organic gate nanodielectrics

Abstract

The effects of bias stress (gate stress or drain stress) on nanowire field-effect transistor (NW-FET) stability were investigated as a function of stress bias and stress time. The n-channel NW-FETs used a nanoscopic self-assembled organic gate insulator, and each device contained a single ZnO nanowire. Before stress, the off current is limited by a leakage current in the 1nA range, which increases as the gate to source bias becomes increasingly negative. The devices also exhibited significant changes in threshold voltage (Vth) and off current over 500 repeated measurement sweeps. The leakage current was significantly reduced after gate stress, but not after drain stress. Vth variations observed upon successive bias sweeps for devices following gate stress or drain stress were smaller than the Vth variation of unstressed devices. These observations suggest that gate stress and drain stress modify the ZnO nanowire-gate insulator interface, which can reduce electron trapping at the surface and therefore reduce the off current levels and variations in Vth. These results confirm that gate and drain stresses are effective means to stabilize device operation and provide high performance transistors with impressive reliabilities.