We report on thin-body tunneling field-effect transistors (TFETs) built on SOI substrates with both SiO(2) and HfO(2) gate dielectrics. The source-drain leakage current is suppressed by the introduction of an intrinsic region adjacent to the drain, reducing the electric field at the tunnel junction in the off state. We also investigate the temperature dependence of the TFET characteristics and demonstrate that the temperature-induced change in the Si bandgap is the main mechanism that determines the tunneling barrier and hence the drain current I(D). We present a model of the TFET as a combination of a gated diode and a MOSFET, which can be solved analytically and can predict the experimentally measured I(D) over a wide range of drain and gate bias. Finally we report on the low frequency noise (LFN) behavior of TFETs, which unlike conventional MOSFETs exhibits 1/f(2) frequency dependence even for large gate areas. This dependence indicates less trapping due to the much smaller effective gate length over the tunneling junction. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.