Radiation-hardened and repairable integrated circuits based on carbon nanotube transistors with ion gel gates

Electronics devices that operate in outer space and nuclear reactors require radiation-hardened transistors. However, high-energy radiation can damage the channel, gate oxide and substrate of a field-effect transistor (FET), and redesigning all vulnerable parts to make them more resistant to total ionizing dose irradiation has proved challenging. Here, we report a radiation-hardened FET that uses semiconducting carbon nanotubes as the channel material, an ion gel as the gate and polyimide as the substrate. The FETs exhibit a radiation tolerance of up to 15 Mrad at a dose rate of 66.7 rad s−1, which is notably higher than the tolerance of silicon-based transistors (1 Mrad). The devices can also be used to make complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)-like inverters with similarly high tolerances. Furthermore, we show that radiation-damaged FETs can be recovered by annealing at a moderate temperature of 100 °C for 10 min. By using carbon nanotubes as a channel material, an ion gel as a gate and polyimide as a substrate, field-effect transistors can be created that have a high radiation tolerance and can be repaired by annealing.