Controllability of Threshold Voltage of ZnO Nanowire Field Effect Transistors by Manipulating Nanowire Diameter by Varying the Catalyst Thickness

The electrical properties of ZnO nanowire field effect transistors (FETs) have been investigated depending on various diameters of nanowires. The ZnO nanowires were synthesized with an Au catalyst on c-plane Al₂O₃ substrates using hot-walled pulsed laser deposition (HW-PLD). The nanowire FETs are fabricated by conventional photo-lithography. The diameter of ZnO nanowires is simply controlled by changing the thickness of the Au catalyst metal, which is confirmed by FE-SEM. It has been clearly observed that the ZnO nanowires showed different diameters simply depending on the thickness of the Au catalyst. As the diameter of ZnO nanowires increased, the threshold voltage of ZnO nanowires shifted to the negative direction systematically. The results are attributed to the difference of conductive layer in the nanowires with different diameters of nanowires, which is simply controlled by changing the catalyst thickness. The results show the possibility for the simple method of the fabrication of nanowire logic circuits using enhanced and depleted mode.