Impact of Source to Drain Tunneling on the Ballistic Performance of Ge, GaSb, and GeSn Nanowire p-MOSFETs

TL;DR

This study uses quantum transport simulations to analyze how material choice, orientation, and doping affect source-to-drain tunneling and performance in nanowire p-MOSFETs made from Ge, GaSb, and GeSn, revealing optimal configurations and stress effects.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive simulation-based analysis of SDT effects in various nanowire p-MOSFET materials and orientations, highlighting the impact of doping and stress on device performance.

Findings

GaSb and GeSn NWFETs outperform Si despite higher SDT in OFF-state.

Optimal orientations for Ge, GaSb, and GeSn are identified for best ON-current.

Uniaxial compressive stress increases OFF-state SDT, reducing ON performance.

Abstract

We investigated the effect of material choice and orientation in limiting source to drain tunneling (SDT) in nanowire (NW) p-MOSFETs. Si, Ge, GaSb, and Ge0.96Sn0.04 nanowire MOSFETs (NWFETs) were simulated using rigorous ballistic quantum transport simulations. To properly account for the non-parabolicity and anisotropy of the valence band the k.p method was used. For each material, a set of six different transport/confinement directions were simulated to identify the direction with the highest ON-current (ION ). For Ge, GaSb, and GeSn [001]/110/-110 oriented NWFETs showed the best ON-state performance, compared to other orientations. Our simulation results show that, despite having a higher percentage of SDT in OFF-state than silicon, GaSb [001]/110/-110 NWFET can outperform Si NWFETs. We further examined the role of doping in limiting SDT and demonstrated that the ON-state performance of Ge and GeSn NWFETs could be improved by reducing the doping in the source/drain (S/D) extension regions. Finally, we analyzed the impact of increased injection velocity in [ [001]/110/-110 oriented GaSb and GeSn NWFETs, as a result of the application of uniaxial compressive stress, and showed that when compared at a fixed OFF-current (IOFF) with unstrained NWFETs, uniaxial compressive stress deteriorates the ON-state performancedue to an increase in OFF-state SDT current component.