QUANTUM MECHANICAL EFFECTS IN THE DESIGN OF NANO-METER SCALE MOSFETS

Quantum mechanical effects have had a profound impact on the design of MOSFETs at the nanoscale scale.This is because as MOSFET dimensions have shrunk, quantum confinement and tunneling effects have emerged, changing the threshold voltage and drain saturation voltage from their conventional values.The change in threshold voltage is attributed to electrons passing past the potential barrier at the gate oxide/channel contact in a quantum mechanical manner.The threshold voltage decreases as the channel length shortens because the chance of tunneling rises.The threshold voltage shift is also influenced by the gate oxide thickness, since thin gate oxide has a higher likelihood of tunneling and a lower threshold voltage.Similar to this, quantum mechanical phenomena also have an impact on drain saturation voltage.The effective…