Impact of electron–phonon scattering on the strain-induced current-blocking effect in graphene field-effect transistors

Abstract

We present a numerical study on the impact of electron–phonon scattering on the performance of a strained-graphene field-effect transistor, where the Dirac point of the channel region is shifted along the transverse momentum direction by a strain-induced vector potential and a high on-current/off-current (Ion/Ioff) ratio as well as a subthreshold slope (SS) steeper than 60 mV/dec have been predicted in the absence of the electron–phonon interaction previously. By using the Dirac-type effective Hamiltonian description for strained graphene and the non-equilibrium Green’s function method to systematically account for the electron–phonon scattering, along with Poisson’s equation, we demonstrate that the abovementioned Ion/Ioff ratio and SS value can be maintained even in the presence of electron–phonon scattering, although the Ion/Ioff ratio and the ID range over which the steep SS persists are reduced.