Ferroelectric field effect transistors for electronics and optoelectronics

Ferroelectric materials have shown great value in the modern semiconductor industry and are considered important function materials due to their high dielectric constant and tunable spontaneous polarization. A ferroelectric field effect transistor (FeFET) is a field effect transistor (FET) with ferroelectric polarization field introduced to regulate carriers in semiconductors. With the coupling of ferroelectric and semiconductor, FeFETs are attractive for advanced electronic and optoelectronic applications, including emerging memories, artificial neural networks, high-performance photodetectors, and smart sensors. In this review, representative research results of FeFETs are reviewed from the perspective of structures and applications. Here, the background and significance of ferroelectrics and FeFETs are given. Furthermore, methods of building FeFETs in different structures and physical models describing the characteristics of FeFET are introduced. Important applications of FeFETs in electronics and optoelectronics are presented, with a comparison of performance between FeFETs and FETs without ferroelectrics, including memories and memristive devices, photodetectors, negative capacitance FETs, sensors, and multifunctional devices. Finally, based on the above discussions, promising applications and challenges of FeFETs are summarized.