- Numerical study of graphene as a channel material for field-effect transistors
- Grassi, Roberto <1982>
Subject
- ING-INF/01 Elettronica
Description
- Graphene excellent properties make it a promising candidate for building future nanoelectronic devices. Nevertheless, the absence of an energy gap is an open problem for the transistor application. In this thesis, graphene nanoribbons and pattern-hydrogenated graphene, two alternatives for inducing an energy gap in graphene, are investigated by means of numerical simulations. A tight-binding NEGF code is developed for the simulation of GNR-FETs. To speed up the simulations, the non-parabolic effective mass model and the mode-space tight-binding method are developed. The code is used for simulation studies of both conventional and tunneling FETs. The simulations show the great potential of conventional narrow GNR-FETs, but highlight at the same time the leakage problems in the off-state due to various tunneling mechanisms. The leakage problems become more severe as the width of the devices is made larger, and thus the band gap smaller, resulting in a poor on/off current ratio. The tunneling FET architecture can partially solve these problems thanks to the improved subthreshold slope; however, it is also shown that edge roughness, unless well controlled, can have a detrimental effect in the off-state performance. In the second part of this thesis, pattern-hydrogenated graphene is simulated by means of a tight-binding model. A realistic model for patterned hydrogenation, including disorder, is developed. The model is validated by direct comparison of the momentum-energy resolved density of states with the experimental angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The scaling of the energy gap and the localization length on the parameters defining the pattern geometry is also presented. The results suggest that a substantial transport gap can be attainable with experimentally achievable hydrogen concentration.
Date
- 2011-05-06
Type
- Doctoral Thesis
- PeerReviewed
Format
- application/pdf
Identifier
urn:nbn:it:unibo-2739
Grassi, Roberto (2011) Numerical study of graphene as a channel material for field-effect transistors, [Dissertation thesis], Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna. Dottorato di ricerca in Ingegneria elettronica, informatica e delle telecomunicazioni