Near Zero‐Threshold Voltage P‐N Junction Diodes Based on Super‐Semiconducting Nanostructured Ag/Al Arrays

Abstract

energy consumption devices. [1,2] Significantly reducing the energy consumption of semiconductor devices with advanced energy-efficient technologies is highly desirable. Some low resistivity materials, such as graphene, [3,4] carbon nanotube, [5] etc., have shown promise in fabricating semiconductor devices to achieve the energy-saving aim. However, the microstructure, morphology, and size of graphene and carbon nanotubes are hard to control precisely, resulting in unrepeatable and unstable device performance. This is not conducive to the application of these materials for nanodevices.Recently, the discovery of super-semiconductors (SSCs), [6] whose resistivity is 3-10 orders of magnitude lower than conventional semiconductors at room temperature, provides an opportunity to realize ultra-low-power semiconductor devices. The dominant charge carriers in SSCs are hot carriers, including hot electrons and holes, with high energy and mobility. These are formed by absorbing photon energy of thermal infrared via metallic plasmon resonances. [7,8] Different from graphene, whose bandgap is zero, [9][10][11][12] the bandgap of SSCs is approximately equal to the photon energy of thermal infrared, which endows ultra-low-power semiconductor devices with a naturally optimal design. Moreover, better than graphene and carbon nanotubes, SSCs can be fabricated in diversiform periodic patterns with large areas via colloidal lithograph, [13][14][15] which is beneficial to the large-scale manufacturing of nanodevices.Semiconductor p-n junctions are the primary building blocks of many electronic devices, such as transistors, integrated circuits, chips, solar cells, and photodetectors. [16][17][18][19] The power consumption of p-n junction diodes depends on their threshold voltage, [20][21][22] the lower the threshold voltage, the lower the power consumption. In this communication, we report SSC p-n junction diodes (Ag/Al arrays) with a tunable threshold voltage by simply changing the thickness of the bottom Ag film. Most importantly, a near zero-threshold voltage can be achieved with an Ag film of ≈20 nm, which results in ultra-low-power p-n junction diodes: ≈3 W per trillion diodes with a working voltage of 1 V, or ≈30 mW per trillion diodes with an operating voltage of 0.1 V. Furthermore, a built-in electric field in the SSC p-n junction is generated by infrared light photons, resulting in a high breakdown field of ≈1.1 × 10 6 V cm −1 , the same Semiconductor devices are currently one of the most common energy consumption devices. Significantly reducing the energy consumption of semiconductor devices with advanced energy-efficient technologies is highly desirable. The discovery of super-semiconductors (SSCs) based on metallic bi-layer shell arrays provides an opportunity to realize ultra-low-power consumption semiconductor devices. As an example, the achievement of near zero-threshold voltage in p-n junction diodes based on super-semiconducting nanostructured Ag/Al arrays is reported, realizing ultra-low-power p-n junction diodes: ≈...

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