A novel nanoscale metal transistor fabricated by conventional photolithography

A novel nanoscale transistor, the metal/insulator tunnel transistor (MITT), which consists of a metal source/drain and an insulator channel, is fabricated by conventional photolithography, and its operation is experimentally verified. In the MITT, an insulator channel is sandwiched between the metal source and drain, and upon this insulator channel a gate insulator and a gate electrode are prepared. The Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) tunneling currents which flow through the metal/insulator tunnel junction are controlled by changing the gate voltage, through variation of the tunnel barrier thickness. Tn this paper, it is demonstrated that the MITT can be fabricated by much simpler processes than MOSFET and that the MITT can be operated by optimizing the MITT structure at room temperature. The results indicate the feasibility of using MITT as the future switching device in ultralarge-scale integrated circuits (ULSI).