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Date
2008-06Type
- Review Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
At the nanometer scale, the computer simulation of electronic transport cannot be conceived without including quantum-mechanical effects as well as the atomic granularity of the simulation domain. In this review we present a three-dimensional quantum transport simulator based on the sp3d5s* semi-empirical tight-binding (TB) method that fulfills these two requirements. The integration of the multi-band TB model into a transport code is only possible, if open boundary conditions (OBCs) are introduced. The available procedures to calculate OBCs in three-dimensional structures are computationally too intensive, since they take the form of a generalized eigenvalue problem or require iterative solvers. Therefore, an improved method based on the scattering-boundary approach is reviewed in this work. It significantly reduces the computational burden associated with the OBCs calculation. Furthermore, it can be formulated either in the Non-Equilibrium Green's Function or in the Wave Function formalism, it works for any channel orientation, material composition, or cross section shape, and it is self-consistently coupled to the three-dimensional computation of the electrostatic potential in the device. These features allow the analysis and the comparison of nanowire field-effect transistors (FETs) with transport along the [100], [110], [111], and [112] crystal axis. Hence, their ON-current, subthreshold swing, and interface roughness sensitivity are investigated. Show more
Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Journal of Computational and Theoretical NanoscienceVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
American ScientificSubject
Non-Equilibrium Green's Function; Numerical Simulation; Quantum Transport; Tight-BindingOrganisational unit
03228 - Fichtner, Wolfgang
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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