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Surface-Roughness-Limited Mean Free Path in Si Nanowire FETs

The mean free path (MFP) in silicon nanowire field effect transistors limited by surface roughness scattering (SRS) is calculated with the non-perturbative approach utilizing the non-equilibrium Green's function method. The entrance scattering effect associated with finiteness of the channel length is identified and a method to eliminate it in the calculation of the MFP is developed. The behavior of the MFP with respect to channel length (L), channel width (W), and the root-mean-square (RMS) of the surface roughness is investigated extensively. Our major findings are that the single parameter, RMS/W, can be used as a good measure for the strength of the SRS effects and that the overall characteristics of the MFP are determined by the parameter. In particular, the MFP exponentially decreases with the increase of RMS/W and the MFP versus the gate electric field shows a distinctively different behavior depending on whether the strength of the SRS effects measured by RMS/W is smaller or greater than 0.06.