A Comprehensive Physics-Based Current–Voltage SPICE Compact Model for 2-D-Material-Based Top-Contact Bottom-Gated Schottky-Barrier FETs

Abstract

In this article, we report the development of a novel physics-based analytical model for explaining the current-voltage relationship in Schottky barrier (SB) 2-D-material field effect transistors (FETs). The model has at its core the calculation of the surface-potential (SP) which is accomplished by invoking 2-D density of states in conjunction with Fermi-Dirac (FD) distribution for electron and hole statistics. The explicit computation for the SP, carried out using the Lambert-W function together with Halley's method, is used to construct the SP-based band-diagram for realizing the transparency of the SBs. Thereafter, the ambipolar current is derived in terms of the electron and hole injection phenomena-the thermionic emission and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling mechanisms-at the SB contacts. Furthermore, drift-diffusion current is derived in terms of the SP and incorporated in the model to account for the scattering in the intrinsic 2-D channel. Finally, the Verilog-A model is validated against experimental I-V data reported in the literature for two different 2-D-material systems. This is the first demonstration of an explicit SP-based SPICE model for ambipolar SB-2-D-FETs that is simultaneously built on tunneling-emission and drift-diffusion formalisms.