First-principles study of anisotropic planar 2D BC2N for sub-5 nm high-performance p-type transistors†

Two-dimensional (2D) materials are considered the potential channel for next-generation transistors. Unfortunately, the development of p-type 2D material transistors lags significantly behind that of n-type, thereby impeding the advancement of complementary logical circuits. In this study, we investigated the electronic properties of 2D BC₂N and analyzed the transport performance of p-type 2D BC₂N-6 FETs through first-principles calculations. The anisotropic electronic properties of BC₂N-6 led to variations in device transport performance along the zigzag and armchair directions. The on-state current of 10 nm BC₂N-6 FETs could reach 2415 μA μm⁻¹ and 1660 μA μm⁻¹ along the zigzag and armchair directions, respectively. Subthreshold swing (SS) values for both directions were 63 mV dec⁻¹, nearing the limit of 60 mV dec⁻¹. Even when the gate length was scaled down to 5 nm, the on-state current of BC₂N-6 FETs in both directions exceeded 1500 μA μm⁻¹, which was approximately 160% of International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) standards for high-performance (HP) devices. Furthermore, the delay time (τ) and power dissipation (PDP) of BC₂N-6 FETs could fully satisfy ITRS requirements. Our work demonstrates that monolayer BC₂N-6 can serve as a competitive p-type channel for next-generation devices.