Three-Dimensional Simulation Study of the Improved On/Off CurrentRatio in Silicon Nanowire Field-Effect Transistors

摘要

In this paper, we report an approach based on three-dimensional numerical simulations for the in-vestigation of the dependence of the on/off current ratio in silicon nanowire (SiNW) field-effect tran-sistors (FETs) on the channel width. In order to investigate the transport behavior in devices withdifferent channel geometries, we have performed detailed two-dimensional and three-dimensionalsimulations of SiNWFETs and control FETs with a fixed channel length L and thickness t butvarying the channel width W from 5 nm and 5 pm. By evaluating the charge distributions and thecurrent flowlines of both the two- and three-dimensional structures, we have shown that the increasein the 'on state' conduction current in the SiNW channel is a dominant factor, which consequentlyresults in more than a two order of magnitude improvement in the on/off current ratio.