Low-dimensional materials-based field-effect transistors

As Moore's law predicted, field-effect transistors (FETs) have been decreasing in size for several decades. In the process, these devices have suffered considerably from short-channel effects and surface instabilities. Low-dimensional materials, such as 0D quantum dots, 1D nanowires and nanotubes, and 2D nanosheets, would be helpful in the device downscaling process while also enhancing device performance, and have therefore been widely applied in many recently designed FETs. Since the 1990s, more than five million studies related to low-dimensional materials-based FETs have been published. In this article, a universal framework is provided to describe the recent progress in this advanced field and it includes discussions of novel materials, new device configurations and the wide variety of device applications.