Empirical Model for the Effective Electron Mobility in Silicon Nanowires

Abstract

An empirical model for the effective electron mobility in silicon nanowires (SiNWs) is presented. The model is based on published mobility data from numerical simulations of electron transport in SiNWs with different cross sections. Both phonon scattering and surface roughness scattering as well as the impact of the effective vertical field are considered. A comparison with a variety of experimental mobility data from the literature shows that the model can be treated as a reference for benchmarking different NW technologies. The effective field dependence is modeled by a simple expression making our mobility model very efficient for the use in numerical device simulators or in analytical MOSFET models.