Quantum mechanical aspects of transport in nanoelectronics

The authors discuss some of the effects quantum mechanics has on the performance of nanometer-scale devices. At low temperature, the confinement and the coherence of the electronic motion on the scale of the electron wavelength give rise to gross deviations from classical charge transport that describes the resistance found in large conventional devices. The authors examine three examples of the quantum mechanical nature of the resistance of a split-gate MODFET, that are not accounted for in conventional classical models of a FET, and yet may influence device speed, noise performance and device isolation. The authors consider the temperature and electric field ranges where quantum mechanical effects are manifested in the charge transport, and speculate about the conditions in which parasitic quantum mechanical effects might be found in a conventional device