Role of Phonon Scattering in Graphene Nanoribbon Transistors: Non-Equilibrium Green's Function Method with Real Space Approach

TL;DR

This paper presents a real-space NEGF simulation of phonon scattering in graphene nanoribbon transistors, revealing the transition from ballistic to dissipative transport and identifying dominant scattering mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a rigorous real-space NEGF approach for phonon scattering, capturing interband effects and providing detailed insights into transport regimes.

Findings

Acoustic phonon scattering dominates at typical voltages.

Optical phonon scattering becomes significant at high gate voltages.

Longer channels increase the impact of acoustic phonon scattering.

Abstract

Mode space approach has been used so far in NEGF to treat phonon scattering for computational efficiency. Here we perform a more rigorous quantum transport simulation in real space to consider interband scatterings as well. We show a seamless transition from ballistic to dissipative transport in graphene nanoribbon transistors by varying channel length. We find acoustic phonon (AP) scattering to be the dominant scattering mechanism within the relevant range of voltage bias. Optical phonon scattering is significant only when a large gate voltage is applied. In a longer channel device, the contribution of AP scattering to the dc current becomes more significant.