摘要:

The development of the sixth generation of wireless communications technology requires terminals that can operate at frequencies above 100 GHz. For human-centric applications, these terminals should also be flexible and have low power. However, current flexible radio-frequency transistors typically have lower maximum frequencies, in part due to the poor thermal conductivity of flexible substrates. Here we report radio-frequency transistors that are based on aligned carbon nanotube arrays on flexible substrates, having current-gain cut-off frequencies (fT) and power-gain cut-off frequencies (fmax) above 100 GHz. This is achieved by using electrothermal co-design to improve the heat dissipation and radio-frequency performance of the devices. The transistors exhibit an on-state current of 0.947 mA µm−1, a transconductance of 0.728 mS µm−1, a peak extrinsic fT of 152 GHz, a peak extrinsic fmax of 102 GHz and a power consumption under 200 mW mm−1. We also show that the devices can be used to create flexible radio-frequency amplifiers with an output power of 64 mW mm−1 and an 11-dB power gain in the K band.

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