Emission and absorption of optical phonons in multigate silicon nanowire MOSFETs

In this paper we study the effect of emission and absorption processes due to inelastic optical phonons in multigate silicon nanowire transistors. We show that low-energy optical phonons reduce drain current through both phonon emission/absorption processes while high-energy phonons redistribute current spectrum inside the nanowire merely by phonon emission process without reducing the current drive significantly. A three-dimensional quantum mechanical device simulator based on the NEGF formalism in uncoupled-mode space has been developed to model quantities of interest in the presence of electron-phonon interactions. Electron-phonon scattering is accounted for by adopting the self-consistent Born approximation and using the deformation potential theory.