This journal is c the Owner Societies 2010 Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys.

, 2010, 12, 1241512419 12415

Transverse piezoelectric eld-eect transistor based on single
ZnO nanobelts
Ya Yang, Junjie Qi, Wen Guo, Yousong Gu, Yunhua Huang and Yue Zhang*
Received 2nd May 2010, Accepted 2nd August 2010
DOI: 10.1039/c0cp00420k
A transverse piezoelectric eld-eect transistor (TP-FET) based
on single ZnO nanobelts has been fabricated on a metallic
graphite substrate in an atomic force microscope (AFM). The
source-to-drain current of the TP-FET was found to decrease
with increasing loading force under a positive bias due to the
carrier-trapping eect and the creation of a charge-depletion
zone. This TP-FET can be applied as a force/pressure sensor for
measuring nanoNewton forces ranged from 0 to 700 nN.
Due to the unique electronic, optical, mechanical, and
piezoelectric properties of ZnO nanowires/nanobelts, they
have been used to fabricate eld-eect transistors,
13
ultraviolet
lasers,
4
light-emitting diodes,
5
and mechanical devices.
6
Most
importantly, by the utilizing coupled semiconducting-
piezoelectric properties of ZnO, nanogenerators and piezo-
electric diodes based on ZnO nanowires/nanobelts have been
demonstrated.
7,8
Recently, by applying a force to create a
piezoelectric eld as the gate of an FET, a longitudinal
piezoelectric FET (LP-FET) based on single ZnO nanowires
was fabricated.
9
This new type of FET completely changes the
conventional FET structure and may have potential applica-
tions in nanoelectromechanical devices. However, the
practical applications of LP-FETs are greatly limited, because
the detecting force range is only from 0 to 20 nN due to large
deformation of ZnO nanowires, and each ZnO nanowire can
only be used to fabricate one LP-FET device. The appearance
of fractures in ZnO nanowires due longitudinal deformation
also hinders the applications of these LP-FET devices.
10,11
The
TP-FET described here is dierent from an LP-FET as it is
based on single nanobelts lying down on metal surfaces with
the current owing perpendicularly to the main axis. The
source and drain electrodes are xed on the surface and at
the bottom of a single nanobelt, respectively. Investigation of
TP-FETs is very important because the carrier path through
nanobelts may be only several tens of nanometres and these
devices may have a higher sensitivity and a larger detecting
range to the applied nanoNewton forces as compared with that
of LP-FETs. Moreover, since the source electrode arrays can be
fabricated on the surface of single ZnO nanobelts they may
have potential applications in the multiplexed detection devices.
However, there has been no report of TP-FETs based on
single ZnO nanowires/nanobelts. As large numbers of
electrical and mechanical nanodevices are fabricated,
13,79
their electrical and mechanical safety become more and more
important. Although mechanical and electrical failures in ZnO
nanowires/nanobelts have been observed,
1012
there are few
reports about the failure of piezoelectric devices based on
single ZnO nanowires/nanobelts. These investigations could
provide important safety guidance for the use of piezoelectric
nanodevices.
In this communication, a TP-FET based on single ZnO
nanobelts on a metallic graphite substrate is constructed by
using a conductive AFM tip. The electrical transport of the
devices under dierent loading forces is investigated in detail
and the mechanism of the devices is discussed. Electrical
failure of the fabricated devices was observed when the
loading forces were larger than 900 nN, suggesting that the
fabricated devices can work safely under a loading force of
0 to 700 nN.
The ZnO nanobelts were synthesized on a silicon substrate
by a simple chemical vapor deposition method, following the
procedure described by Pan et al.
13
The as-grown nanobelts
were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
(JSM 6490, Japan) and high-resolution transmission electron
microscopy (HRTEM) (JEOL-2010, Japan). To facilitate the
manipulation of single ZnO nanobelts under the optical
microscope, we chose a large-size nanobelt with a width of
about 10 mm, as shown in Fig. 1(a) and thickness 150 nm, as
shown in Fig. 1(c) and (d). The nanobelts have a wurtzite
structure and grow along the [0001] direction with the (2

10)
top/bottom surfaces [Fig. 1(b)]. The single ZnO nanobelt was
then transferred to a metallic graphite substrate.
The transverse electrical transport properties of single ZnO
nanobelts under the dierent loading forces were examined
using a standard conductive AFM (Nanoscope IIIa,
Multimode) with PtIr-coated tips (force constants: 0.2 N m
1
and 1 N m
1
) at room temperature. The experimental setup
begins with single ZnO nanobelts being placed on a metallic
graphite substrate, which acts as the bottom electrode. The
ZnO nanobelt is then located by the AFM in contact mode.
Once a nanobelt is selected, the conductive AFM tip is used as
the top electrode and the current then ows through the AFM
tip, the single nanobelt, and the metallic graphite substrate. The
schematic diagram of the measurements is shown in Fig. 1(e).
Fig. 2(a) shows the room-temperature photoluminescence
(PL) spectra recorded from the ZnO nanobelt [Fig. 1(c)] taken
by using the 325 nm line of a HeCd laser as the excitation
source. The strong peak centered at 376 nm corresponds to the
near-band-edge UV emission peak of ZnO. The green emission
peak can not be observed, indicating that the ZnO nanobelt
has a high-quality crystalline structure with a low concentration
of oxygen deciencies.
14
Fig. 2(b) presents a series of consecu-
tively recorded IV curves on the ZnO nanobelt in Fig. 1(c)
9,24
under the dierent loading forces by using an AFM tip (force
constant: 0.2 N m
1
), showing an obvious Schottky rectifying
State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, School of
Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and
Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, P. R. China.
E-mail: yuezhang@ustb.edu.cn
COMMUNICATION www.rsc.org/pccp | Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
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12416 Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2010, 12, 1241512419 This journal is c the Owner Societies 2010
behavior. It is interesting to see that the positive current was
found to decrease as the loading force increases. The pheno-
menon was further conrmed by continuously measuring the
electrical transport properties at tens of spots along the
nanobelt under dierent loading forces. The corresponding
energy-band diagram of the PtIr tip/ZnO nanobelt/metallic
graphite under thermal equilibrium is shown in Fig. 2(c). Since
the work function of graphite is about 4.4 eV and the electron
anity of ZnO is 4.5 eV,
15,16
the contact between ZnO and the
graphite substrate is Ohmic. Since the work function of the
PtIr tip is 5.5 eV,
17
the contact between the ZnO nanobelt and
the PtIr tip should be Schottky, which is consistent with the
Schottky rectifying behavior in Fig. 2(b).
To understand the phenomenon observed in Fig. 2(b), the
forward branch of each IV curve was analyzed by using
the thermionic emission theory.
18
According to this theory, the
current for the positive voltages can be given by
I A

AT
2
exp
qf
B
K
B
T

exp
qV
D
nK
B
T
1

1
where A is the eective area of the diode, T is the absolute
temperature, q is the electronic charge, f
B
is the Schottky
barrier height (SBH) of the junction, V
D
is the applied voltage
dropped on the Schottky junction, n is the ideality factor, K
B
is
the Boltzman constant, and A
*
is the Richardson constant,
which for ZnO is 32 A cm
2
K
2
. Usually, a simple plot of
ln I vs. V is used to extract the ideality factor of Schottky
diodes. q/nK
B
T can be obtained from the slope of the linear
region of such a curve. Under a loading force of 20 nN, the
ideality factor was determined to be about 7.4 by using the
ln I vs. V (o1 V) plot in Fig. 3(a). The ideality factor is
consistent with the reported value (79) for Schottky nano-
contacts between AFM tips and ZnO nanorods,
19
which
suggests that there is no air gap between the metallic graphite
substrate and the ZnO nanobelt. However, as the loading
forces increase, the ln I vs. V plots are clearly nonlinear even if
the voltage range is from 0 V to 1 V, which is due to the
presence of non-negligible series resistance of ZnO nanobelt in
the diodes.
20,21
Therefore, when V
D
>3K
B
T/q, eqn (1) can be
revised as
I A

AT
2
exp
qf
B
K
B
T

exp
q
nK
B
T
V IR

2
where R is the resistance of ZnO nanobelt, V is the
total voltage drop across the series combination of the
diode and ZnO nanobelt resistor.
21
By dierentiating eqn (2)
with respect to J (J = I/A), the resistance R of the
Fig. 1 (a) SEM image of the ZnO nanobelts grown on a silicon
substrate. (b) A low-magnication TEM image of a single ZnO
nanobelt. The inset is the corresponding selected-area electron dirac-
tion (SEAD) pattern of the nanobelt. (c) AFM image of a single ZnO
nanobelt. (d) The corresponding line prole across the ZnO nanobelt.
(e) Schematic diagram of IV measurements of the fabricated device.
Fig. 2 (a) PL spectrum of a single ZnO nanobelt. (b) Serials of the
representative IV curves under dierent loading forces from 20 to
180 nN. (c) Energy-band diagram of the PtIr tip/ZnO nanobelt/
metallic graphite under thermal equilibrium.
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ZnO nanobelts can be extracted from the slope of the plot of
d(V)/d(ln J) vs. J,
dV
dln J
RAJ nK
B
T=q 3
The d(V)/d(ln J) vs. J plots of the Schottky diode under the
dierent loading forces produce regular linear curves as shown
in Fig. 3(b), suggesting that this method can be used to deduce
the resistances of ZnO nanobelts under the dierent loading
forces.
21
Because the width of the nanobelt is much larger than
the tip radius, the tipsample contact can be modeled as a
sphere indenting a at surface according to the Derjaguin
MullerToporov (DMT) model.
22,23
The contact area A can
be given by
A = p[(R/E)(F + |F
adh
|)]
2/3
(4)
where R is the tip radius (20 nm), E is the eective Youngs
modulus of the tip, F is the loading force, and F
adh
is the
tipsample adhesion force which is experimentally determined.
The obtained resistances of ZnO nanobelts under the dierent
loading forces are shown in Fig. 3(c), indicating that the
resistance of ZnO nanobelts increases with increasing
loading force.
We now examine the possible mechanisms that are respon-
sible for the increase in resistance of ZnO nanobelts. Usually,
when ZnO is subjected to strain, the change in resistance is
associated with the piezoresistance and piezoelectric eects.
9,24
Scrymgeour et al. reported that the low piezoelectric response
corresponds to the low resistivity in ZnO nanorods.
25
Since the
high doping concentration or the large numbers of oxygen
vacancies in ZnO nanowires/nanobelts usually result in a low
resistivity, the piezoelectric eect should be negligible in
these nanomaterials. The resistance in single Sb-doped ZnO
nanobelts was found to decrease with increasing loading force
along the [2

10] direction, which is attributed to the

piezoresistance eect.
24
Moreover, the transverse IV charac-
teristics of single ZnO nanoleaves with large numbers of
oxygen vacancies show that the current through the nanoleaf
increases as the loading force increases, which is also related to
the piezoresistance eect (the strain-induced change of
bandgap in ZnO).
26
However, these results are completely
contrary to the observed phenomenon in this study, indicating
that the increase in resistance of ZnO nanobelts can not
be attributed to the piezoresistance eect. In fact, the PL
spectrum in Fig. 2(a) shows that ZnO nanobelts have a
high-quality crystalline structure with a low concentration of
oxygen deciencies, suggesting that the high piezoelectric
response exists in the nanobelts due to the high resistivity.
The increase in resistance of ZnO nanobelts is therefore
associated with the piezoelectric eect.
The carrier-trapping eect and creation of a change-
depletion zone induced by the piezoelectric eect have been
used to explain the mechanism of LP-FETs.
9
Although the
deformations of the nanobelt in this study are completely
dierent from that in LP-FETs, we consider that a similar
piezoelectric electric eld also exists in the nanobelts. Fig. 4(a)
Fig. 3 (a) Plots of ln I vs. V under dierent loading forces. (b) Fitting
the plots of d(V)/d(ln J) vs. J of the fabricated device under the
dierent loading forces. The solid curves represent tting of the
experimental data points. (c) A plot showing the relationship between
the resistance of ZnO nanobelts and the loading force.
Fig. 4 (a) Structural model of the wurtzite ZnO nanobelt. (b)
Tetrahedral coordination between Zn and O. (c) Distortion of the
tetrahedral unit under the compressive strains along the [2

10]
direction, showing the displacement of the center of negative charge
from that of the positive charge. (d) The creation of a piezoelectric
electric eld (E
PZ
) in the ZnO nanobelt due to the deformation.
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12418 Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2010, 12, 1241512419 This journal is c the Owner Societies 2010
shows the structural model of wurtzite ZnO nanobelts in this
study. When no force is applied to the tetrahedral unit of ZnO,
the positive and negative charge centers are completely
identical, as shown in Fig. 4(b). When the ZnO nanobelt is
mechanically deformed by the AFM tip along the [2

10]
direction, the positive and negative charge centers are
displaced with respect to each other [Fig. 4(c)], resulting in a
piezoelectric charge-induced polarization P along the [0001]
direction of the ZnO nanobelt. It is noticed that these piezo-
electric ionic charges cannot move freely. A piezoelectric
potential drop of DV = V
+
P
V

P
p Pd is created along
the [0001] direction [Fig. 4(d)], where d is the contact diameter
between the AFM tip and the nanobelt. When the current
ows through the nanobelt from the AFM tip to the graphite
substrate, the electrons can be trapped in the piezoelectric
electric eld (E
PZ
= DV/d) induced by the potential drop, as
shown in Fig. 4(d). As E
PZ
increases with the increasing
loading force, more electrons can be trapped by E
PZ
, resulting
in the decrease in positive current (the increase in resistance).
This situation is similar to the case where a gate voltage is
applied across the width of a ZnO nanobelt in a typical
nanobelt eld-eect transistor.
27
DV increases as the loading
force increases and aects the transverse electric transport in
the nanobelt, which can be regarded as the gate voltage in the
TP-FET. The free electrons are repulsed away by the negative
potential (V

P
) and a charge-depletion zone forms. As the
loading force increases, the depletion region grows larger,
resulting in a decrease of conducting channels. Both the
carrier-trapping eect and the change of depletion region are
responsible for the decrease in positive current (the increase in
resistance).
Since the loading forces are used to create a piezoelectric
electric eld as the gate of LP-FET devices, it is necessary to
acquire knowledge about the safe working range of the
loading forces before these devices can be applied. To obtain
the maximal safe loading force of the fabricated device, we
measured the IV characteristics of the device under the
dierent loading forces by using an AFM tip with a force
constant of 1 N m
1
, as shown in Fig. 5. The results show that
the positive current decreases with increasing loading force
when the loading forces are lower than 700 nN. If the loading
forces are larger than 900 nN, both the reverse current and
positive current dramatically increase with the increasing
loading force, suggesting that the piezoelectric eect may be
badly weakened under these large loading forces. Our results
suggest that these fabricated TP-FET devices based on single
ZnO nanobelts can be used to detect the nanoNewton forces
ranging from 0 to 700 nN.
In our experiment, the PtIr tip was not seriously damaged
under the large loading forces up to 1300 nN since the PtIr tip
could still be used to scan the morphology of the nanobelt and
measure the electrical transport properties after large loading
forces were removed. To understand the origin of the failure of
TP-FET devices under large loading forces (>900 nN), the
enhanced tunneling eect and the possibility of a strain-
induced structural phase transition were investigated. The
enhanced tunneling eect has been observed in single ZnO
nanoleaves with a large donor impurity density under large
loading forces due to the decrease of the Schottky barrier
height.
26
Although the enhanced tunneling eect can also be
used to explain the increase of reverse current with increasing
loading force, the abrupt increase of the positive current can
not be well understood. A strain-induced structural phase
transition may lead to a sudden change in the IV character-
istics. It has been reported that a phase transition can be
observed at a pressure of about 9 GPa in ZnO crystals.
28
In
this study, the pressure can be up to 10.9 GPa under a loading
force of 900 nN, which is larger than the reported phase
transition pressure. Therefore, a structural phase transition
could appear in the ZnO nanobelt when the loading forces are
larger than 900 nN. For the zinc blende phase ZnO, the
pressure can create local dipole moments, but for each dipole
moment created, there also exists a symmetrical moment in the
crystal, which can cancel the eect at the scale of a couple of
atoms. Thus the zinc blende phase ZnO doesnt exhibit any
piezoelectric eect. The disappearance of the piezoelectric
eect due to a phase transition could be responsible for the
increase in positive current under the large loading forces.
Moreover, since the bandgap of zinc blende phase ZnO
(3.1 eV) is smaller than that of wurtzite ZnO (3.37 eV),
29
the
decrease in bandgap will induce a decrease of the
Schottky barrier height between the ZnO nanobelt and
the AFM tip, which can greatly enhance the reverse tunneling
current.
26
In summary, we have directly observed a decrease of the
transverse current though single ZnO nanobelts with
compressed deformations induced by an AFM tip under a
positive bias. The TP-FET composed of a ZnO nanobelt
bridging an Ohmic contact and a Schottky contact has been
demonstrated, in which the source-to-drain current is
controlled by the compression of the nanobelt. The mecha-
nism of the device is attributed to the carrier-trapping eect
and the creation of a charge-depletion zone due to the piezo-
electric eect. Failure of the fabricated devices was observed
when the loading forces are larger than 900 nN.
This work was supported by the National Basic Research
Program of China (No. 2007CB936201), the Major Project of
International Cooperation and Exchanges (No. 50620120439,
2006DFB51000), the State Key lab for Advanced Metals
and Materials (No. 2008ZD-09, No. 2008Z-08), and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Fig. 5 IV characteristics of the fabricated TP-FET device under
dierent loading forces.
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