Modelling of the thermoelectrical performance of devices based on VO2

By reaching the limits of conventional silicon-based integrated circuits, more and more effort is done to develop new devices for integrated circuits. A promising structure is based on the semiconductor-to-metal phase change of vanadium-dioxide at about 67°C. In these circuits the information is carried by combined thermal and electrical currents. Thermal effects cannot be separated so well in thermal-electronic circuits as electrical effects in electronic circuits thus, accurate distributed electrothermal simulation is mandatory. This paper presents three VO₂ material models, the algorithmic extension of an electrothermal field simulator to be able to handle the hysteresis of VO₂ and the modelling of VO₂ based devices. The paper compares measured and simulated device characteristics.