Thermoelectric power factor enhancement with gate-all-around silicon nanowires

Thermoelectric Power Factor of Ultra-Narrow Silicon Nanowires

The thermoelectric performance of materials is determined by the figure of merit ZT=σS2/(κe+κl), where σ is the electrical conductivity, S is the Seebeck coefficient and κe and κl are the electronic and lattice contributions to the thermal conductivity, respectively. The interrelation between these quantities has traditionally kept ZT low, around unity. Nanomaterials have recently attracted sig...

Thermoelectric Power Factor of Narrow Silicon Nanowires from Atomistic Considerations

Silicon nanowires (NWs) of small diameters have attracted significant attention as efficient thermoelectric materials since the work of Hicks and Dresselhaus [1], who pointed out that low dimensionality can be beneficial to the Seebeck coefficient. The recent results of Boukai et al. [2], and Hochbaum et al. [3] showed that it is indeed possible to achieve ZT~0.5 at room temperature in Si NWs o...

Thermoelectric Power Factor of Low Dimensional Silicon Nanowires

We analyze the thermoelectric power factor in ultra-narrow low-dimensional silicon nanowires (NWs) by employing atomistic considerations for the electronic structures and linearized Boltzmann transport theory. We consider different transport orientations and both n-type and p-type NWs. We show that the NW properties are highly anisotropic, especially for p-type, and as the diameter is reduced f...

Impurity-limited mobility and variability in gate-all-around silicon nanowires

Yann-Michel Niquet, a) Hector Mera, and Christophe Delerue L Sim, SP2M, UMR-E CEA/UJF-Grenoble 1, INAC, Grenoble, France IM2NP, UMR CNRS 6242, Marseille, France IEMN Dept. ISEN, UMR CNRS 8520, Lille, France We discuss the scattering of electrons and holes by charged dopant impurities in 〈001〉, 〈110〉 and 〈111〉 gate-all-around silicon nanowires (Si NWs) with diameters in the 2-8 nm range. We show...

Sub-15 nm gate-all-around field effect transistors on vertical silicon nanowires