Quantum Transport Simulation of Silicon-Nanowire Transistors Based on Direct Solution Approach of the Wigner Transport Equation

In this paper, we present a self-consistent and 3D quantum simulator for Si-nanowire transistors based on the Wigner function model and multidimensional Schrodinger-Poisson algorithm. To achieve a sufficient numerical accuracy for calculating subthreshold current, we introduced a third-order differencing scheme for discretizing the drift term in the Wigner transport equation. By comparing with semiclassical Boltzmann and nonequilibrium Green´s function approaches, the validity of the present simulator is confirmed. We also demonstrate that the source-drain tunneling is a critical physical phenomenon related to a scaling limit of nanowire devices, and the semiclassical simulation measurably underestimates a minimum gate length.