Lateral growth of ZnO nanorod arrays in polyhedral structures for high on-current field-effect transistors

Lateral growth of one-dimensional nanostructures is crucial for high performance field-effect transistors (FETs) which can drive a high on-current that is proportional to the number of nanorods (NRs) aligned between electrodes. Hence, it is strongly required to laterally and directly grow a large number of NRs between electrodes. For the first time, we propose a polyhedral-type FET (PH-FET) based on laterally-grown ZnO NRs, which includes circle, square and triangle configurations. The PH-FET structure not only provides a larger contact area than that of the planar parallel-type FET so that a great number of ZnO NRs are aligned between electrodes, but also generates a high on-current in the mA range (i.e., 5.5–6.8 mA). The high on-current PH-FET opens up a new range of applications for power devices where large currents have to be switched.