Performance Evaluation of Ballistic Silicon Nanowire Transistors with Atomic-basis Dispersion Relations

Abstract

In this letter, we explore the bandstructure effects on the performance of ballistic silicon nanowire transistors (SNWTs). The energy dispersion relations for silicon nanowires are evaluated with an sp3d5s* tight binding model. Based on the calculated dispersion relations, the ballistic currents for both n-type and p-type SNWTs are evaluated by using a semi-numerical ballistic model. For large diameter nanowires, we find that the ballistic p-SNWT delivers half the ON-current of a ballistic n-SNWT. For small diameters, however, the ON-current of the p-type SNWT approaches that of its n-type counterpart. Finally, the carrier injection velocity for SNWTs is compared with those for planar metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors, clearly demonstrating the impact of quantum confinement on the performance limits of SNWTs.

arXiv comment12 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• A Three-Dimensional Quantum Simulation of Silicon Nanowire Transistors with the Effective-Mass Approximation
• Boundary conditions for the electronic structure of finite-extent, embedded semiconductor nanostructures
• Valley splitting in strained silicon quantum wells

Cited by in corpus (5)

• On the Validity of the Parabolic Effective-Mass Approximation for the Current-Voltage Calculation of Silicon Nanowire Transistors
• Performance Analysis of a Ge/Si Core/Shell Nanowire Field Effect Transistor
• Robust Mode Space Approach for Atomistic Modeling of Realistically Large Nanowire Transistors
• Multiscale Modeling of Nanowire-based Schottky-Barrier Field-Effect Transistors for Sensor Applications
• Simulation study of ballistic spin-MOSFET devices with ferromagnetic channels based on some Heusler and oxide compounds