SnO Nanosheet Transistor with Remarkably High Hole Effective Mobility and More than Six Orders of Magnitude On-Current/Off-Current

Using novel SiO₂ surface passivation and ultraviolet (UV) light anneal, a 12 nm thick SnO p-type FET (pFET) shows hole effective mobilities (µ_eff) of more than 100 cm²/V·s and 31.1 cm²/V·s at hole densities (Q_h) of 1 × 10¹¹ and 5 × 10¹² cm⁻², respectively. To further improve the on-current/off-current (I_ON/I_OFF), an ultra-thin 7 nm thick SnO nanosheet pFET shows a record-breaking I_ON/I_OFF of 6.9 × 10⁶ and remarkable µ_eff values of ~70 cm²/V·s and 20.7 cm²/V·s at Q_h of 1 × 10¹¹ cm⁻² and 5 × 10¹² cm⁻², respectively. This is the first report of an oxide semiconductor transistor achieving a hole effective mobility µ_eff that reaches 20% of that in single-crystal Si pFETs at an ultra-thin body thickness of 7 nm. In sharp contrast, the control SnO nanosheet pFET without surface passivation or UV anneal exhibits a small I_ON/I_OFF of 1.8 × 10⁴ and a µ_eff of only 6.1 cm²/V·s at 5 × 10¹² cm⁻² Q_h. The enhanced SnO pFET performance is attributed to reduced defects and improved quality in the SnO channel, as confirmed by decreased charges related to sub-threshold swing (SS) and threshold voltage (Vth) shift. Such a large improvement is further supported by the increased Sn²⁺ after passivation and UV anneal, as evidenced by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The I_ON/I_OFF ratio exceeding six orders of magnitude, remarkably high hole µ_eff, and excellent two-month stability demonstrate that this pFET is a strong candidate for integration with SnON nFETs in next-generation ultra-high-definition displays and monolithic three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D ICs).