Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Channel-Based Tunnel Transistor

We investigate the gate controlled direct band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) current in monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenide (MX
₂
) channel-based tunnel field effect transistor (TFET). Five MX
₂
materials (MoS
₂
,MoSe
₂
,MoTe
₂
,WS
₂
,WSe
₂
) in their 2-D sheet forms are considered for this purpose. We first study the real and imaginary band structure of those MX
₂
materials by density-functional theory (DFT), which is then used to evaluate the gate-controlled current under the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation. It is shown that all five MX
₂
support direct BTBT in their monolayer sheet forms and offer an average ON current and subthreshold slope of 150 μA/μm (at V
_d
=0.1 V) and 4 mV/dec, respectively. Furthermore, we also demonstrate the strain effect on the complex band structures and the performances of MX
₂
based TFETs. It is observed that a certain tensile strain becomes favorable for the improvement of ON-current performances.