Effective-mass model of surface scattering in locally oxidized Si nanowires

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simplified effective mass model to analyze surface scattering effects in locally oxidized silicon nanowires, providing insights into conductance behavior and intra-subband scattering mechanisms.

Contribution

It develops an atomistically scaled effective mass model combined with quantum transport formalism to study surface scattering in silicon nanowires, bridging atomistic and continuum approaches.

Findings

Identifies intra-subband scattering from potential wells as a key mechanism.

Shows good agreement with atomistic DFT-based hole-transport calculations.

Provides a computationally efficient framework for analyzing surface effects in nanowires.

Abstract

We present a simple model to describe the lowest-subbands surface scattering in locally oxidized silicon nanowires grown in the [110] direction. To this end, we employ an atomistically scaled effective mass model projected from a three-dimensional effective mass equation and apply a quantum transport formalism to calculate the conductance for typical potential profiles. Comparison of our results with hole-transport calculations using atomistic models in conjunction with density functional theory (DFT) points to an intra-subband scattering mechanism from a potential well.