Optimization of CNT and TFT Parameters for Maximum Transconductance and Safe Temperature Operation of Carbon Nanotube Thin-Film Transistors (CNT-TFTs) Employed in Flat Panel Displays

Abstract

Thin Film Transistors (TFTs) have lived to see its significant technological improvement for various display applications in recent years. Carbon nanotube (CNT) based TFT technologies have been found to be a promising component for next generation flexible electronics and flat panel displays in view of CNTs high carrier mobility, device stability and mechanical flexibility. However, the design of CNT-TFT is still not well established, especially with a view to achieve the best performance still protecting thermal stability. In this study, the authors had analysed the device structure and operation of transistor in which carbon nanotubes act as active channel region. CNT-TFT with different device geometrics and CNT physical parameters such as channel length, channel width, CNT tube length, network density and its orientation have been extensively studied using NanoNet simulation tool. This study has thrown new insight into the device performance characteristics of CNT-TFTs. The results show that it is essential to fix the length of the channel more than 5 µm for restricting the device temperature at 300 K and it can be brought down as low as 3 µm if the maximum operating temperature can be 400 K. Comparison with already reported experimental results show that the TFT parameters returned by the simulation experiments and presented in this paper match closely.