Summary: | In this paper, a germanium-based gate-metal-core vertical nanowire tunnel field effect transistor (VNWTFET) has been designed and optimized using the technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation. In the proposed structure, by locating the gate-metal as a core of the nanowire, a more extensive band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) area can be achieved compared with the conventional core−shell VNWTFETs. The channel thickness (<i>T</i><sub>ch</sub>), the gate-metal height (<i>H</i><sub>g</sub>), and the channel height (<i>H</i><sub>ch</sub>) were considered as the design parameters for the optimization of device performances. The designed gate-metal-core VNWTFET exhibits outstanding performance, with an on-state current (<i>I</i><sub>on</sub>) of 80.9 μA/μm, off-state current (<i>I</i><sub>off</sub>) of 1.09 × 10<sup>−12</sup> A/μm, threshold voltage (<i>V</i><sub>t</sub>) of 0.21 V, and subthreshold swing (SS) of 42.8 mV/dec. Therefore, the proposed device was demonstrated to be a promising logic device for low-power applications.
|