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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 February 2013
Developing energy efficient electronics or green electronics is an area that is largely driven by the performance limitations of scaled Si-based CMOS due to the exceptionally high power dissipation and high leakage currents arising in such devices at nanoscale dimensions. It is clear now that Si-based CMOS has been stretched over the past several decades to the point that further miniaturization will make such simple size scaling non-sustainable in the future. New materials and technologies are thus vigorously being explored beyond Si, in order to overcome performance limitations from ultra-miniaturized Si-CMOS. Among these materials, carbon-based nanostructures such as graphene and carbon nanotubes are being considered as viable alternatives to Si-CMOS to enable energy efficient green electronics. Novel architectures for enabling low-power, energy-efficient computation are currently being explored, which include tunneling field-effect-transistors (TFETs), as well as nano-electro-mechanical-systems (NEMS) due to their abrupt ON/OFF transitions, low OFF state currents and high speed operation. In this paper, an overview of carbon nanomaterials is presented and the role they play in enabling energy efficient TFETs and NEMS is also highlighted. Finally, the emergence of a new class of 2D systems beyond graphene is discussed such as MoS2, which may open up new avenues for exploration and enabling applications in electronics.
(invited paper)