Effect of intravalley acoustic phonon scattering on quantum transport in multigate silicon nanowire metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors

In this paper we investigate the effects of intravalley acoustic phonon scattering on the quantum transport and on the electrical characteristics of multigate silicon nanowire metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors. We show that acoustic phonons cause a shift and broadening of the local DOS in the nanowire, which modifies the electrical characteristics of the device. The influence of scattering on off-state and on-state currents is investigated for different values of channel length. In the ballistic transport regime, source-to-drain tunneling current is predominant, whereas in the presence of acoustic phonons, diffusion becomes the dominant current transport mechanism. A three-dimensional quantum mechanical device simulator based on the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism in uncoupled-mode space has been developed to extract device parameters in the presence of electron-phonon interactions. Electron-phonon scattering is accounted for by adopting the self-consistent Born approximation and using the deformation potential theory. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. (doi: 10.1063/1.3457848)