Improved Subthreshold and Output Characteristics of Source-Pocket Si Tunnel FET by the Application of Laser Annealing

To reduce the power consumption and improve the device performance in scaled CMOS integrated circuits, transistors with steep subthreshold swing (SS) is highly desirable. The tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) based on the band-to-band tunneling has been suggested as a replacement to conventional MOSFETs. In order to improve the device performance of TFET, enhanced carrier transport across the tunneling junction is crucial. In this paper, source-pocket Si TFET is presented and successfully fabricated by laser annealing. This TFET has enhanced lateral electric field across the source tunneling junction, resulting in a reduction of tunneling distance. The experimental data of the proposed paper, for the first time, shows steep SS (46 mV/dec at 1 pA/μm), excellent I_ON/I_OFF ratio ( <; 10⁷), and improved output characteristics at T = 300 K due to the dramatic reduction of the tunneling resistance. Compared with other TFET works, the proposed method is efficient to improve the device performance on TFET.