UC Davis

Vertical field effect transistors (VFETs) have attracted considerable interest for developing ultra-scaled devices. In particular, individual VFET can be stacked on top of another and does not consume additional chip footprint beyond what is needed for a single device at the bottom, representing another dimension for high-density transistors. However, high-density VFETs with small pitch size are difficult to fabricate and is largely limited by the trade-offs between drain thickness and its conductivity. Here, a simple approach is reported to scale the drain to sub-10 nm. By combining 7 nm thick Au with monolayer graphene, the hybrid drain demonstrates metallic behavior with low sheet resistance of ≈100 Ω sq-1 . By van der Waals laminating the hybrid drain on top of 3 nm thick channel and scaling gate stack, the total VFET pitch size down to 20 nm and demonstrates a higher on-state current of 730 A cm-2 . Furthermore, three individual VFETs together are vertically stacked within a vertical distance of 59 nm, representing the record low pitch size for vertical transistors. The method pushes the scaling limit and pitch size limit of VFET, opening up a new pathway for high-density vertical transistors and integrated circuits.