Trajectory of Radiation-Hardened Electronics: From Carbon Nanotubes to Integrated Circuits at the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics

The development of electronic technologies capable of withstanding high-energy cosmic radiation is urgently needed to enable scientific exploration in increasingly extreme application scenarios, such as nuclear facilities, deep-space missions, and orbiting space stations. Conventional silicon-based integrated circuits (ICs) typically require additional radiation-hardening processes after design, resulting in structures that are more complex than standard devices. Moreover, many standard silicon-based ICs remain susceptible to total ionizing dose (TID)-induced degradation without dedicated hardening, leading to limited radiation tolerance. Consequently, the development of new materials, devices, and ICs with intrinsic radiation tolerance has emerged as a critical research frontier in recent years. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) offer significant inherent advantages over conventional silicon-based technologies owing to their strong sp 2 carbon–carbon bonds, one-dimensional quantum confinement, and minimal charge-trapping interfaces. This Review highlights the progress made at the Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics (SINANO), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in the development of semiconducting SWCNTs (sc-SWCNTs) as well as radiation-hardened SWCNT field-effect transistor (FET) devices and ICs. In this field, researchers at SINANO have also authored several books on carbon-based electronic materials, devices, and circuits, alongside publishing more than 200 papers and being granted more than 50 patents. Specifically, this Review covers the purification of sc-SWCNTs and single-chirality sc-SWCNTs by both commercial and self-designed conjugated organic compounds; the deposition of high-quality networked and aligned sc-SWCNT thin films on flexible and rigid substrates; and the design and fabrication of record-performance radiation-hardened SWCNT FET devices and ICs. Finally, the remaining challenges in sc-SWCNT materials, FET devices, and ICs for reliable radiation-hardened applications are discussed, followed by perspectives on future practical deployment in space and other nuclear extreme environments.