Effect of Size Reduction on Switching Characteristics in GaAs-Based Schottky-Wrap-Gate Quantum Wire Transistors

Abstract

The effect of size reduction on switching characteristics is investigated experimentally for the low-switching-power operation of GaAs-based quantum wire transistors (QWRTr's) utilizing etched AlGaAs/GaAs nanowires controlled by Schottky wrap gates (WPGs). WPG QWRTr's in which the wire width, W, and gate length, LG, are systematically changed are fabricated and characterized with respect to operation temperature, switching voltage, ΔVG, gate voltage to Fermi energy scaling factor, α, and power-delay product, PDP. When W is less than 200 nm, more than 80% of the fabricated devices exhibit quantized conductance at 30 K. The device with W=40 nm shows a large α of 0.7. Decreasing LG into the sub-100-nm range is found to be effective for improving power consumption, since the short channel effect is suppressed by tight potential control in the WPG structure.