Self-aligned suspended-body single-walled (SW) carbon nanotube field-effect transistors (CNFETs) with dual lateral gates have been demonstrated. Two independent lateral gates are symmetrically placed less than 100 nm away from the CNT channel. The operations of the suspended-body SWCNFETs in single-gate (SG) mode and dual-gate (DG) mode are analyzed in detail. In SG mode, strong controllability of the primary gate and the tuning effect of the second gate have been observed. Tunable threshold voltage and transconductance with constant subthreshold swings are the typical effects in the suspended-body CNFETs. Compared to SG mode, superior characteristics have been obtained in DG mode: remarkably improved subthreshold slope (from 130 mV/decade to 86 mV/decade), three time larger on-current and four times larger transconductance. The dual-lateral-gate suspended-body CNFETs are of great interest for complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) and nano-electro-mechanical-systems (NEMS) devices, such as tunable/switchable resonators for sensing and radio-frequency applications. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.