Pseudo-potential Band Structure Calculation of InSb Ultra-thin Films and its application to assess the n-Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Transistor Performance

TL;DR

This paper calculates the electronic band structure of InSb ultra-thin films using empirical pseudopotential methods, revealing key properties like effective mass and valley energy, and assesses their impact on nanoscale transistor performance.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed band structure analysis of InSb thin films with EPM, challenging simple models and providing parameters for device simulation.

Findings

Gamma valley remains lowest conduction valley in thin films

Effective mass increases as film thickness decreases

InSb thin film devices analyzed with NEGF in ballistic regime

Abstract

Band structure of InSb thin films with $<100>$ surface orientation is calculated using empirical pseudopotential method (EPM) to evaluate the performance of nanoscale devices using InSb substrate. Contrary to the predictions by simple effective mass approximation methods (EMA), our calculation reveals that $\Gamma$ valley is still the lowest lying conduction valley. Based on EPM calculations, we obtained the important electronic structure and transport parameters, such as effective mass and valley energy minimum, of InSb thin film as a function of film thickness. Our calculations reveal that the 'effective mass' of $\Gamma$ valley electrons increases with the scaling down of the film thickness. We also provide an assessment of nanoscale InSb thin film devices using Non-Equilibrium Green's Function under the effective mass framework in the ballistic regime.