Memory effects of carbon nanotube-based field effect transistors

In this paper, we report the study on the non-volatile memory effects of carbon nanotube-based field effect transistors (CNTFETs), in which semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) bridge the gold electrodes and the doped silicon substrate acts as the back gate. We find that our CNTFETs exhibit good performance with on/off ratio of more than 104 and they also show strong memory effects. Hysteretic behaviors of the drain current as a function of the gate voltage are clearly observed at room temperature. The threshold voltage shift increases with increasing the sweeping range of the gate voltage. The CNTFET memory effects show good charge retention capability with the data storage time of around 7 days at ambient condition. Besides, the threshold voltage shift of the as-prepared CNTFETs is found to decrease with time and saturate after around 3 days. Water and alcohol molecules adsorbed on the carbon nanotube are suggested to be the origin of the phenomena. It is also observed that the threshold voltage shift in "top-contacf' structures is larger than those in "bottom-contacf' structures at the same gate voltage sweeping range. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.