Investigation on the electrical properties of superlattice FETs using a non-parabolic band model

The effect of non-parabolic energy-bands on the electrical properties of an In0.53Ga0.47As/In0.52Al0.48As superlattice FET has been investigated. An energy dependent effective mass was fitted on k · p simulation results and the new band model was implemented into a self-consistent Schrödinger–Poisson solver. This analysis has shown that non-parabolicity effects lead to noticeable changes of the device characteristics with respect the parabolic band model, namely: an increase of the on-state current and a steeper transition from the off- to the on-state sustained across several decades of current, at the expense of an increased off-state leakage. Moreover, the larger density of states in the non-parabolic model causes a 47% growth of the output conductance at low VDS, as well as an increased drain conductance in saturation.