Device Performance of Graphene Nanoribbon Field Effect Transistors with Edge Roughness Effects: A Computational Study

The device performance of armchair edge graphene nanoribbon Schottky barrier field effect transistors (A-GNR SBFETs) over different edge roughness and widths are investigated over a wide range of devices in terms of I_ON/I_OFF. Generally, wider GNRs outperform narrower GNRs in the presence of edge roughness effects with average leakage current reduced up to ~400% less. The average leakage current for 2.2 nm width GNR SBFETs increased 2.7 times when edge roughness increased from 5% to 10%, while the same for 1.4 nm widths increased 11.2 times In addition, a small amount of ER of 5% is well tolerated by all GNR SBFETs, with the average I_ON/I_OFF lowered from 4012 to 3075 for 1.4 nm widths. However, a further increase in ER to 20% degrades performance greatly, dropping I_ON/I_OFF to 273. The generally reliable performance of GNR SBFETs at small edge irregularities over channel widths is reported and a detailed statistical investigation provided.