title: The impact of etched trenches geometry and dielectric material on the electrical behaviour of silicon-on-insulator self-switching diodes.
abstract: Hole electrical transport in a p-doped nanochannel defined between two L-shape etched trenches made on a silicon-on-insulator substrate is investigated using a TCAD-Medici simulator. We study the impact of the etched trenches' geometry and dielectric filling materials on the current-voltage characteristics of the device. Carrier accumulation on frontiers defined by the trenches causes a modulation of the hole density inside the conduction channel as the bias voltage varies and this gives rise to a diode-like characteristic. For a 1.2 µm-long channel, plots of the electric field distribution show that a nonlinear transport regime is reached at a moderate reverse and forward bias of  ± 2 V. Plots of the carrier velocity along the conduction channel show that holes remain hot for a few hundreds of nm outside the nanometre-wide channel, at a bias of  ± 10 V. Filling the etched trenches with a high-κ  dielectric material gives rise to a lower threshold voltage, V(th). A similar decrease of V(th)  is also achieved by reducing the longitudinal and/or the transverse trench width. Our simulation results provide useful design guidelines for future integrated self-switching-diode-based circuits.
authors.affiliation: Département de génie électrique et génie informatique, et Institut interdisciplinaire d'innovation technologique (3IT), Université de Sherbrooke, 2500, Boulevard de l'Université, J1K 2R1, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada. ghania.farhi@usherbrooke.ca
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Farhi
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Morris
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Charlebois
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Raskin