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A Ferroelectric Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor

Ferroelectric field-effect transistors employ a ferroelectric material as a gate insulator, the polarization state of which can be detected using the channel conductance of the device. As a result, the devices are of potential to use in non-volatile memory technology, but suffer from short retention times, which limits their wider application. Here we report a ferroelectric semiconductor field-effect transistor in which a two-dimensional ferroelectric semiconductor, indium selenide (α-In2Se3), is used as the channel material in the device. α-In2Se3 was chosen due to its appropriate bandgap, room temperature ferroelectricity, ability to maintain ferroelectricity down to a few atomic layers, and potential for large-area growth. A passivation method based on the atomic-layer deposition of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) was developed to protect and enhance the performance of the transistors. With 15-nm-thick hafnium oxide (HfO2) as a scaled gate dielectric, the resulting devices offer high performance with a large memory window, a high on/off ratio of over 108, a maximum on-current of 862 μA μm-1, and a low supply voltage.