ABSTRACT
Since CNTs and graphene are characterized by very large mobilities and near ballistic transport, these materials hold great promise for the replacement of Si in next-generation nanoelectronics channels. In their semiconducting forms, these carbon nanomaterials exhibit room temperature mobilities over 10 times greater than silicon. This translates to devices with significant improvements in performance and power savings, allowing higher integration at the same power density. In addition, they can be scaled to smaller feature sizes than silicon, while maintaining their electrical properties. It is for these reasons that carbon-based nanoelectronics have been selected as the recommended “beyond CMOS” technology. It is noteworthy that in addition to nanoscale FETs (based on graphene or CNTs) and flexible FETs (based on thin films of conjugated hydrocarbons), carbon-based transistors are also useful as chemical or biological sensors because the environmental sensitivity of carbon-based molecules can be efficiently tailored by synthetic chemistry. In the following sections, the focus will be laid on important recent advances in the development of FETs comprising the three different types of carbon nanostructures.
