Extremely high-gain source-gated transistors

Significance The advent of thin-film electronics and the development of new materials, such as oxide semiconductors, bring great opportunities for new device designs and applications. A source-gated transistor (SGT) is created by combining two fundamental building blocks of electronics: a thin-film transistor and a Schottky diode. By developing a methodology to manipulate the source barrier profile, an extremely high gain of 29,000 is achieved, previously unthinkable with a single component. The SGT design overcomes several major bottlenecks to using oxide semiconductors in large-scale applications and broadens the range of channel materials beyond standard semiconductors. These advantages combined with an analytical theory confirmed by simulations and experiments demonstrate the potential of SGTs to be a fundamental component for thin-film electronics.