(Invited) Improved Thin Film Transistor Model Predicts TFT Operation in the THz Range

Novel Thin-film-transistor (TFT) TFT materials such as ZnO, InGaZnO, AMO-CNT, and organic materials dramatically improved the achieved and projected TFT performance. The low field mobility of oxide materials has reached values comparable to those for short-channel Si CMOS. The effects related to electron inertia and electron density oscillations in field effect transistors channels (FETs) diminish the role of the low field mobility as a figure of merit in short channel devices making the performance gap between TFTs and Si CMOS smaller enabling high frequency TFT applications even reaching sub-THz and THz frequencies (for the operating regimes using the rectification of the plasma oscillations. We report on an improved compact model based on the RPI TFT model [1] and using the Unified Charge Control Model (UCCM). [2, 3] This model accounts for a non-exponential slope in the subthreshold regime by introducing a varying subthreshold slope and accounts for non-trivial capacitance dependence on the gate bias. It also accommodates the inclusion of the parasitics related to the gate impedance. These new features allowed us to obtain an excellent agreement with the measured I-V/C-V characteristics for both long and short n-channel and p-channel TFTs. The application of this new TFT model to the analysis of the TFT response requires accounting for non-local potential distribution in the device channel. This is achieved by using a multi-segment nonlinear transmission line model of the TFT channel reproducing the approach that has been previously used for the THz SPICE/ADS Si CMOS model implementation. As a possible application example, we simulated a TFT complementary inverter. Our simulations showed that using the phase-matched THz signal feeding should yield a very sensitive detection of THz radiation impinging on a short channel TFT. These results show that the TFT RFID and other applications could be extended into the THz range of frequencies.