On the Surface-Roughness Scattering in Biaxially Strained n- and p-MOS Transistors

Electron- and hole-mobility enhancements in biaxially strained metal-oxide-semiconductor transistors are still a matter for active investigation, and this brief presents a critical examination of a recently proposed interpretation of the experimental data, according to which the strain significantly modifies not only the root-mean-square value but also the correlation length of the surface-roughness spectrum. We present a systematic comparison between comprehensive numerical simulations and experiments, which supports such an interpretation.