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Yu. O. Kruglyak
«Physics of Nanotransistors: the Device, the Metrics, and Control of the Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor»
201–232 (2018)

PACS numbers: 72.20.Dp, 72.80.Ey, 85.30.De, 85.30.Pq, 85.30.Tv, 85.40.Bh

The transistor is the key element of almost any electronic device. The discoveries of the transistor in 1947 and integrated circuits in 1958 were the beginning of the revolutionary transformation of whole electronics. In the course of the development of semiconductor technology, the number of transistors in integrated circuits had been doubled annually. This doubling of the number of transistors, accompanied by a continuous decrease in their size, continued at approximately same rate during more than 50 years. The MOSFET (Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor) theory was formulated in the 1960s. Then, the length of the transistor conduction channel was about 10 ?m???10 000 nm. During the development of semiconductor technology, the dimensions of the transistor became steadily decreasing, and the needs for new physical models for their description became increasingly felt. By the end of the 20th century, transistor sizes had reached a nanoscale, and the nanotransistor itself was the first of all nanoscale electronic devices to be the object of mass industrial production. Today, the length of the transistor conduction channel has approached 10 nm that is three orders of magnitude lower than in the first MOSFET. The task of this series of reviews is to discuss the physical models and principles underlying the functioning of nanoscale MOSFETs and based on both the traditional ‘top–down’ approach and a more modern approach originating in the works of Rolf Landauer, who proposed the model of an elastic resistor long before its experimental confirmation for the nanoconductors, as well as of Suprio Datta and Mark Lundstrom, who rethought this model, gave it the current sound and proved its applicability to electronic devices as nanoscopic, micro- and macroscopic ones of arbitrary dimensions (1D, 2D and 3D) and operating in ballistic, quasi-ballistic, and diffusion modes.

Keywords: nanoelectronics, field-effect transistor, current–voltage characteristics, transistor metrics, transistor control, virtual source

https://doi.org/10.15407/nnn.16.02.201