Computational comparison of conductivity and mobility models for silicon nanowire devices

In this paper, a comparison of three different models for the conductivity and mobility is given for the case of silicon nanowire devices in the presence of electron-phonon scattering. The consistency of all three models in the case of homogeneous nanowires is demonstrated. The scattering limited conductivity and mobility is a well defined quantity in this case. For nonhomogeneous systems like triple-gate nanowires FETs, these scattering limited quantities are no longer well defined for very short gate lengths. The quality of the underlying assumptions and the physical interpretation of the differences in the resulting transport characteristics are discussed. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3573487]