Group III–V ternary compound semiconductor materials for unipolar conduction in tunnel field-effect transistors

Abstract

A distinct materials combination is presented for tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs): gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP) as a wider-bandgap material in the drain and channel regions with indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) as a narrow-bandgap material for the source region. The introduction of this novel materials combination greatly improves the ON-state current, OFF-state current, ambipolar behavior, threshold voltage, and subthreshold slope compared with other group III---V ternary heterojunction TFETs. In GaAsP---InGaAs TFETs, the ambipolar current remains equal to the OFF-state current. This paper explores the potential of the proposed device for ultralow-power high-performance applications.