Toward Understanding Temperature and Bias Instabilities of Anti-ambipolar Transistors via Low-Frequency Noise Spectroscopy

Anti-ambipolar transistors (AATs) featuring heterojunctions of n- and p-type semiconductors have garnered significant research interest owing to their unique electrical characteristics. With the nonlinear current response, AATs hold great promise for a wide range of next-generation electronic applications, further enhancing advanced logic and in-memory computing functionality. However, the seamless integration of AATs into these applications hinges upon addressing their susceptibility to temperature and bias instabilities, a challenge that has yet to be systematically explored. Here, the origin of these instabilities is reported in AATs composed of indium-gallium-zinc oxide (IGZO) and dinaphtho[2,3-b:2′,3′-fjthieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DNTT) through low-frequency noise (LFN) spectroscopy. The findings reveal that the AATs exhibit a notable reduction in peak current with temperature instability and an abrupt decrease in drain current under applied DC bias. It is examined that these instabilities stem from defect-related carrier transport mechanisms at the n/p heterojunction, evidenced by the observation of 1/f ⁴ noise. Furthermore, a comprehensive comparative analysis is provided of 1/f ⁴ noise behavior with and without the insertion of an insulative layer of AAT. This provides the microscopic origin of how the LFN generation mechanism changes the defect-related carrier conduction at the interface and mitigates the bias and temperature instabilities.