Performance assessment of nanoscale Schottky MOSFET as resonant tunnelling device: Non-equilibrium Green’s function formalism

Abstract

A comprehensive study is performed on the electrical characteristics of Schottky barrier MOSFET (SBMOSFET) in nanoscale regime, by employing the non-equilibrium Green’s function (NEGF) approach. Quantum confinement results in the enhancement of effective Schottky barrier height (SBH). High enough Schottky barriers at the source/drain and the channel form a double barrier profile along the channel that results in the formation of resonance states. We have, for the first time, proposed a resonant tunnelling device based on SBMOSFET in which multiple resonance states are modulated by the gate voltage. Role of essential factors such as temperature, SBH, bias voltage and structural parameters on the feasibility of this device for silicon-based resonant tunnelling applications are extensively studied. Resonant tunnelling appears at low temperatures and low drain voltages and as a result negative differential resistance (NDR) is apparent in the transfer characteristic. Scaling down the gate length to 6 nm increases the peak-to-valley ratio (PVR) of the drain current. As the effective SBH reduces, the curvature of the double barrier profile is gradually diminished. Therefore, multiple resonant states are contributed to the current and consequently resonant tunnelling is smoothed out.