Study of electron velocity overshoot in NMOS inversion layers

Non-local electron transport in nMOSFET inversion layers has been studied by Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Inversion layer quantization has been explicitly included in the calculation of density of states and scattering rate for low-energy electrons while bulk band structure is used to describe the transport of more energetic electrons. For uniform, high-lateral field conditions, the effects of quantization are less pronounced due to the depopulation of electrons in the lower-lying subbands. On the other hand, Monte Carlo results for carrier transport in spatially varying lateral fields (such as those in the inversion layer of MOSFETs) clearly indicate that depopulation of the low-lying subbands is less evident in the non-local transport regime. Quasi-2D simulations have shown that, at high transverse effective field, the inclusion of a quantization domain does have an impact on the calculated spatial velocity transient.