Analysis of Resistance and Mobility in InGaAs Quantum-Well MOSFETs From Ballistic to Diffusive Regimes

Recent advances in the fabrication technology have yielded nanometer-scale InGaAs quantum-well (QW) MOSFETs with extremely low and reproducible external contact and access region resistances. This allows, for the first time, a detailed analysis of the role of ballistic transport in the operation of these devices. This paper presents a systematic analysis of external resistance, ballistic resistance, and channel mobility in InGaAs QW-MOSFETs under near-equilibrium conditions, i.e., under very low drain-source bias. This is an important regime for device characterization. Devices with a wide range of channel lengths, from 70 to 650 nm, are investigated. Our analysis includes the consideration of the impact of carrier degeneracy in the QW channel. We show that unless the ballistic behavior in the intrinsic channel is accounted for, the standard extraction technique for external resistance grossly exaggerates its value as it incorporates the so-called ballistic resistance. By separating out the ballistic resistance, the external resistance in our devices is shown to be extremely low, 74 Ω-μm, including both source and drain sides. This is thanks to our contact-first self-aligned Mo-contact technology. Furthermore, taking the advantage of the wide range of ballisticity of the devices studied in this paper, we demonstrate a methodology to self-consistently extract scattering-dependent effective mobility, mean-free-path length, and ballistic mobility.