Tunable SnSe2 /WSe2 Heterostructure Tunneling Field Effect Transistor

Abstract

The burgeoning 2D semiconductors can maintain excellent device electrostatics with an ultranarrow channel length and can realize tunneling by electrostatic gating to avoid deprivation of band-edge sharpness resulting from chemical doping, which make them perfect candidates for tunneling field effect transistors. Here this study presents SnSe₂ /WSe₂ van der Waals heterostructures with SnSe₂ as the p-layer and WSe₂ as the n-layer. The energy band alignment changes from a staggered gap band offset (type-II) to a broken gap (type-III) when changing the negative back-gate voltage to positive, resulting in the device operating as a rectifier diode (rectification ratio ~10⁴ ) or an n-type tunneling field effect transistor, respectively. A steep average subthreshold swing of 80 mV dec^-1 for exceeding two decades of drain current with a minimum of 37 mV dec^-1 at room temperature is observed, and an evident trend toward negative differential resistance is also accomplished for the tunneling field effect transistor due to the high gate efficiency of 0.36 for single gate devices. The I_ON /I_OFF ratio of the transfer characteristics is >10⁶ , accompanying a high ON current >10^-5 A. This work presents original phenomena of multilayer 2D van der Waals heterostructures which can be applied to low-power consumption devices.

Keywords: pn diode; tunneling field effect transistor; van der Waals heterostructures.