Tunnel field-effect transistors with graphene channels

The lack of an OFF-state has been the main obstacle to the application of graphene-based transistors in digital circuits. Recently vertical graphene tunnel field-effect transistors with a low OFF-state current have been reported; however, they exhibited a relatively weak effect of gate voltage on channel conductivity. We propose a novel lateral tunnel graphene transistor with the channel conductivity effectively controlled by the gate voltage and the subthreshold slope approaching the thermionic limit. The proposed transistor has a semiconductor (dielectric) tunnel gap in the channel operated by gate and exhibits both high ON-state current inherent to graphene channels and low OFF-state current inherent to semiconductor channels.