Strain effects on hole current in silicon nanowire FETs

Hole transport simulation based on the nonequilibrium Green's function and tight-binding formalism has been performed for strained Si nanowire FETs with a diameter of 1.5nm and 2.5 nm. Simulation results show that for Si nanowire FETs with a diameter of 2.5 nm, the compressive strain enhances the ballistic hole current, while the tensile strain gives opposite results. For Si nanowire FETs with a diameter of 1.5 nm, the ballistic hole current hardly depends on the strain magnitude.