Two-Terminal Carbon Nanotube Programmable Devices for Adaptive Architectures
✍ Scribed by Guillaume Agnus; Weisheng Zhao; Vincent Derycke; Arianna Filoramo; Yves Lhuillier; Stéphane Lenfant; Dominique Vuillaume; Christian Gamrat; Jean-Philippe Bourgoin
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2010
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 476 KB
- Volume
- 22
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0935-9648
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Devices based on nanoscale objects with well-defined structures and original electronic properties are of great interest for the development of innovative electronic circuits, in particular if they offer novel functionalities (such as memory or sensing) and are compatible with large-scale self-assembly techniques. Among these devices, two-terminal ones such as memristors are attracting intense interest due to their potential superior capabilities in terms of integration. [1][2][3][4][5] However, at the nanometer scale, one faces the critical issue of variability among devices, both in terms of device-to-device performances and in terms of precise positioning of individual objects. It is, thus, very unlikely that conventional circuit architectures developed for silicon complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices will be ideally suited for these new devices. Adaptive architectures comprising a programming or a learning step are probably more reasonable candidates, as they are naturally tolerant to variability. Targeting adaptive circuits is a challenging approach, which requires the development of devices that combine several key properties among which a well-controlled memory effect is the most critical.
In this context, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are of special relevance, as they combine nanometer-scale size and 1D character with exceptional electronic, mechanical, and chemical properties. In particular, carbon nanotube-based field-effect transistors (CNTFETs), when aggressively scaled, compete favorably with predictions of ultimate silicon-based devices of the same size. However, circuits based on such three-terminal devices do not present sufficient improvement in terms of scaling, performances, and functionality to compensate for the strong issues related to their integration. Indeed, despite COMMUNICATION www.advmat.de www.MaterialsViews.com