High-performance and low-power sub-5 nm field-effect transistors based on 7-9-7-AGNR

Recently, an extremely-air-stable one-dimensional 7-9-7-AGNR was successfully fabricated. To further reveal its potential application in sub-5-nm field-effect transistors (FETs), there is an urgent need to develop integrated circuits. Here, we report first-principles quantum-transport simulations on the performance limits of n- and p-type sub-5-nm one-dimensional 7-9-7-AGNR FET. We find that the on-state current (I_on) in 7-9-7-AGNR FET can be effectively manipulated by the length of the gate and underlap. In particular, the optimized I_on in the n-type (p-type) device can reach up to 2423 (4277) and 1988 (920) μA μm⁻¹ for high-performance and low-power applications, respectively. The large I_on values are in the top class among the low-dimensional FETs, which can well satisfy the ITRS requirements. We also find that the 7-9-7-AGNR FET can have ultralow subthreshold swing below 60 mV dev⁻¹, ultrashort delay time (<0.01 ps), and very small power-delay product (<0.01 fJ μm⁻¹). Our results show that the 7-9-7-AGNR-based FETs have great potential applications in high-speed and low-power consumption chips.