Use of Negative Capacitance to Provide Voltage Amplification for Low Power Nanoscale Devices

It is well-known that conventional field effect transistors (FETs) require a change in the channel potential of at least 60 mV at 300 K to effect a change in the current by a factor of 10, and this minimum subthreshold slope S puts a fundamental lower limit on the operating voltage and hence the power dissipation in standard FET-based switches. Here, we suggest that by replacing the standard insulator with a ferroelectric insulator of the right thickness it should be possible to implement a step-up voltage transformer that will amplify the gate voltage thus leading to values of S lower than 60 mV/decade and enabling low voltage/low power operation. The voltage transformer action can be understood intuitively…