Improvement of epitaxial channel quality on heavily arsenic- and boron-doped Si surfaces and impact on performance of tunnel field-effect transistors

We evaluate the impact of tunnel junction quality on the performance of tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs). The interface between epitaxially grown channel and source surface was used as tunnel junctions. Performing a sequential surface cleaning procedure prior to epitaxial channel growth for heavily arsenic- and boron-doped Si surfaces improved the interface quality both for p- and n-TFETs. Simultaneously, the subthreshold swing (SS) values of the TFETs improved step-by-step with interface quality.