Phonon exacerbated quantum interference effects in III-V nanowire transistors

In recent years, a great deal of attention has been focused on the development of quantum wire transistors as a means of extending Moore's Law. Here we present, results of fully three-dimensional, self-consistent quantum mechanical device simulations of InAs tri-gate nanowire transistor (NWT). The effects of inelastic scattering have been included as real-space self-energy terms. We find that the position of dopant atoms in these devices can lead a reduction in the amount of scattering the carriers experience. We find that the combination of deeply buried dopant atoms and the high energy localization of polar optical phonon processes allow devices to recover their ballistic behavior even in the presence of strong inelastic phonon processes. However, we find that dopant atoms close to the source-channel interface cause severe quantum interference effects leading to significant performance reduction.