Rectification in Ionic Field Effect Transistors Based on Single Crystal Silicon Nanopore

Abstract

Ionic FETs have enormous potential for energy conversion, sensing, and ionic circuits due to their efficient regulation of the nanochannel. Here ionic FETs based on single-crystal silicon nanopores and the rectification of the fabricated devices are studied. The electrical characterization results demonstrated that since the silicon-based nanopores have the advantage of modulating the surface charge due to their semiconductor nature and benefitting from the effective 3D gating effect on the nanochannel, the magnitude and polarity of surface charge can be modulated by the gate voltage. The rectification effect can be adjusted by applying a certain voltage and fulfilling a transition between anion selectivity and cation selectivity when the surface charge polarity is reversed. Moreover, current–voltage characteristics of the reported ionic FET can be switched between ohmic and diode-like regimes. The proposed ionic FETs supply a novel platform to study the ionic properties and have great potential to be applied in large-scale ionic circuits due to their excellent performance. Finally, simulation results prove the surface charge modulated by the gate voltage determines the magnitude and direction of rectification, which is consistent with the reported experiment result.