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Fnord666 writes:

For the first time, scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have combined these two different types of transistors into a single device that can easily switch between power-efficient and high performance modes, depending on the need. The device has a special type of metal-semiconductor junction which can be tweaked to make it behave either like a MOSFET or a tunnel FET.

"You have flexibility," says Shubhadeep Bhattacharjee, Ph.D. student at the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering, IISc and first author of the paper published in Applied Physics Letters. "Using the same device, you can have either high performance which compromises on power, or an optimal performance, low-power operation. Think of it as using the same car as either a Tata Nano or a Mercedes Benz."

[...] The dual-gated device was able to operate at a voltage lower than possible with conventional MOSFETs, greatly reducing power consumption. This would enable reduction of operating voltage to less than half a volt. It also showed superior performance compared to current state-of-the-art tunnel FETs.

The new composite design offers much more flexibility in transistor function than previously possible, and may improve the efficiency of electronic devices significantly, the authors say.

More information: A sub-thermionic MoS2 FET with tunable transport, published in Applied Physics Letters, October 2017 (Featured among Editor's picks). aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.4996953

Source: https://phys.org/news/2017-12-scientists-device-capable-dual-transistor.html

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