A Pearson Effective Potential for Monte Carlo Simulation of Quantum Confinement Effects in nMOSFETs

An original Pearson effective potential (PEP) model for including quantization effects in the simulation of nanoscale nMOSFETs has been introduced in a Monte Carlo (MC) simulator. The PEP correction properly accounts for quantum confinement effects in bulk-, single-, and double-gate silicon-on-insulator nMOS capacitors and nanoscale nMOSFETs devices. The results obtained from semiclassical, PEP-corrected, and multisubband MC approaches are reported and compared for a double-gate nMOSFET with a channel length
L

_C
=10 nm and a silicon film thickness
T

_Si
=5 nm at low and high drain voltages. Excellent agreements are obtained between PEP-corrected and multisubband MC methods on both electrical characteristics and microscopic quantities. Finally, the impact of quantum confinement effects on drive current is evaluated in double-gate structures over a large range of channel length and silicon film thickness.