Improved Subthreshold Slope in an InAs Nanowire Heterostructure Field-Effect Transistor

An n-type InAs/InAsP heterostructure nanowire field-effect transistor has been fabricated and compared with a homogeneous InAs field-effect transistor. For the same device geometry, by introduction of the heterostructure, the threshold voltage is shifted 4 V, the maximum current on-off ratio is enhanced by a factor of 10,000, and the subthreshold swing is lowered by a factor 4 compared to the homogeneous transistor. At the same time, the drive current remains constant for a fixed gate overdrive. A single nanowire heterostructure transistor has a transconductance of 5 muA/V at a low source-drain voltage of 0.3 V. For the homogeneous InAs transistor, we deduced a high electron mobility of 1500 cm2/Vs.