Simulation of ultra-compact silicon nanowire FETs with Quantum ATK

Nanowire-based field-effect transistors (FET) are an excellent choice for a wide range of applications, including high-end computing and low-power sensor systems due to their high performance, gate control, low energy consumption and faster switching abilities. Silicon nanowire (SiNW) is considered a highly promising contender for the forthcoming generation of nanoelectronics-based devices. However, there have not been many studies conducted so far on the FET devices using concepts built around silicon nanowires. In this paper, FET structure based on silicon nanowire has been simulated using the Quantum ATK tool using Semi-empirical Extended Hückel theory (ATK-SE) with the Non-Equilibrium Green’s Function formalization (NEGF), at 300 K temperature to facilitate faster and more energy-efficient computing devices. A variety of high-k dielectric constant materials have been used for carrying on the investigations to reduce the thickness of the equivalent gate oxide, leading to enhancements in the on-off current ratio and the elimination of leakage current. The utilization of source and drain control settings has the potential to mitigate the adverse effects of subthreshold situations. The investigation of various dielectrics involves the examination of subthreshold phenomena such as Drain-induced barrier lowering, Threshold swing, switching speed, I<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ON</inf> and I<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OFF</inf> currents. There is good agreement between various characteristic parameters as per the expectations of any novel electronic device. In the full paper, all the results will be presented and explained with the help of energy band diagrams and characteristic plots.