Direct observation of hot electrons in Si-MOSFETs

We have directly observed the energy distributions of hot electrons in Si-MOSFETs for the first time. This was accomplished by using a lateral hot-electron transistor (LHET) with two potential barriers: an emitter barrier and a collector barrier. Since the gate length of MOSFETs continues to be scaled down and the electrical fields in the channel tends to increase, hot-carrier injection increasingly occurs. The hot carriers cause the device degradation, also give rise to the advantage of velocity overshoot which leads to higher transconductance. To forecast future MOSFETs, it is thus important to estimate the energy distribution of hot carriers in a decanometer-gate-length regimes.