High Inversion Current in Silicon Nanowire Field Effect Transistors

Abstract

Silicon nanowire (SiNW) field effect transistors (FETs) with channel widths down to 20 nm have been fabricated by a conventional “top-down” approach by using electron-beam lithography. The SiNW device shows higher inversion channel current density than the control devices. The extracted electron inversion mobility of the 20 nm width nanowire channel (≈1000 cm2/Vs) is found to be 2 times higher than that of the reference MOSFET (≈480 cm2/Vs) of large dimension (W ≥ 1 μm). We attribute this mobility increase to strain-induced changes in the band structure of the SiNW after oxidation.