Identifier

etd-07092017-182109

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

The Moore’s law of scaling of metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) had been a driving force toward the unprecedented advancement in development of integrated circuit over the last five decades. As the technology scales down to 7 nm node and below following the Moore’s law, conventional MOSFETs are becoming more vulnerable to extremely high off-state leakage current exhibiting a tremendous amount of standby power dissipation. Moreover, the fundamental physical limit of MOSFET of 60 mV/decade subthreshold slope exacerbates the situation further requiring current transport mechanism other than drift and diffusion for the operation of transistors. One way to limit such unrestrained amount of power dissipation is to explore novel materials with superior thermal and electrical properties compared to traditional bulk materials. On the other hand, energy efficient steep subthreshold slope devices are the other possible alternatives to conventional MOSFET based on emerging novel materials. This dissertation addresses the potential of both advanced materials and devices for development of next generation energy efficient integrated circuits. Among the different steep subthreshold slope devices, tunnel field effect transistor (TFET) has been considered as a promising candidate after MOSFET. A superior gate control on source-channel band-to-band tunneling providing subthreshold slopes well below than 60 mV/decade. With the emergence of atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials, interest in the design of TFET based on such novel 2D materials has also grown significantly. Graphene being the first and the most studied among 2D materials with exotic electronic and thermal properties. This dissertation primarily considers current transport modeling of graphene based tunnel devices from transport phenomena to energy efficient integrated circuit design. Three current transport models: semi-classical, semi-quantum and numerical simulations are described for the modeling of graphene nanoribbon tunnel field effect transistor (GNR TFET) where the semi-classical model is in close agreement with the quantum transport simulation. Moreover, the models produced are also extended for integrated circuit design using Verilog-A hardware description language for logic design. In order to overcome the challenges associated with the band gap engineering for making graphene transistor for logic operation, the promise of graphene based interlayer tunneling transistors are discussed along with their existing fundamental physical limitation of subthreshold slope. It has been found that such interlayer tunnel transistor has very poor electrostatic gate control on drain current. It gives subthreshold slope greater than the thermionic limit of 60 mV/decade at room temperature. In order to resolve such limitation of interlayer tunneling transistors, a new type of transistor named “junctionless tunnel effect transistor (JTET)” has been invented and modeled for the first time considering graphene-boron nitride (BN)-graphene and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2)-boron nitride (BN) heterostructures, where the interlayer tunneling mechanism controls the source-drain ballistic transport instead of depleting carriers in the channel. Steep subthreshold slope, low power and high frequency THz operation are few of the promising features studied for such graphene and MoS2 JTETs. From current transport modeling to energy efficient integrated circuit design using Verilog-A has been carried out for these new devices as well. Thus, findings in this dissertation would suggest the exciting opportunity of a new class of next generation energy efficient material based transistors as switches.

Date

2017

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Secure the entire work for patent and/or proprietary purposes for a period of one year. Student has submitted appropriate documentation which states: During this period the copyright owner also agrees not to exercise her/his ownership rights, including public use in works, without prior authorization from LSU. At the end of the one year period, either we or LSU may request an automatic extension for one additional year. At the end of the one year secure period (or its extension, if such is requested), the work will be released for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Srivastava, Ashok

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.4489

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