Quantum Transport in AlGaSb/InAs TFETs With Gate Field In-Line With Tunneling Direction

Quantum transport simulations are performed in tunneling FETs (TFETs) with the gate electric field in-line with the tunneling junction direction (in-line TFETs). Charge self-consistency and thermalization effects are included in a semiclassical Poisson solution to compute the electrostatic potential. The obtained potential is then used for current calculation with the ballistic nonequilibrium Green's function method (NEGF) in the tight binding basis. It is shown that the NEGF method predicts a higher subthreshold swing than the often-used dynamic nonlocal (DNL) path band-to-band method. The NEGF method accounts for the direct source-drain tunneling, which is underestimated in the DNL path approach in the studied geometries. Undercut is shown to be essential to obtain switching slope below 60 mV/decade in the in-line TFETs.