Band-to-band tunneling in Γ valley for Ge source lateral tunnel field effect transistor: Thickness scaling

The direct and indirect valleys in Germanium (Ge) are separated by a very small offset, which opens up the prospect of direct tunneling in the Gamma valley of an extended Ge source tunnel field effect transistor (TFET). We explore the impact of thickness scaling of extended Ge source lateral TFET on the band to band tunneling (BTBT) current. The Ge source is extended inside the gate by 2 nm to confine the tunneling in Ge only. We observe that as the thickness is scaled, the band alignment at the Si/Ge heterojunction changes significantly, which results in an increase in Ge to Si BTBT current. Based on density functional calculations, we first obtain the band structure parameters (bandgap, effective masses, etc.) for the Ge and Si slabs of varying thickness, and these are then used to obtain the thickness dependent Kane's BTBT tunneling parameters. We find that electrostatics improves as the thickness is reduced in the ultra-thin Ge film (<= 10 nm). The ON current degrades as we scale down in thickness; however, the subthreshold slope (SSAVG) improves remarkably with thickness scaling due to subsurface BTBT. We predict that 8 nm thin devices offer the best option for optimized ON current and SSAVG. Published by AIP Publishing.