Semi-classical Monte Carlo study of the impact of tensile strain on the performance limits of monolayer MoS2 n-channel MOSFETs

The effects of tensile strain and contact transmissivity on the performance limits of monolayer molybdenum disulfide ( MoS2) nanoscale n-channel MOSFETs are studied using a semi-classical Monte Carlo method. Density functional theory calculations were performed to parametrize the electronic band structure of MoS2 subject to tensile and shear strain. Tensile strain decreases the bandgap, increases the inter-valley band-edge energy separation between the light-mass K-valleys and heavier-mass Q-valleys, and decreases the K-valley effective mass in a way that depends on the direction and the amount of the applied strain. Biaxial tensile strain and uniaxial tensile strain along the x- or y-directions are found to have the largest effect. In bulk materials, low-field phonon-limited electron mobility is enhanced, peak and saturation drift velocities are increased, and high-field negative differential resistance becomes more pronounced. Both 200 and 15 nm gate length MoS2 MOSFETs with end-contacts with ideal (unity) and more realistic (significantly sub-unity) contact interface transmissivity were simulated. These MoS2 devices exhibited substantial sensitivity to strain with ideal contact transmissivity, and more so for the 15 nm quasi-ballistic device scale than 200 nm long-channel devices. However, the results showed much less strain sensitivity for devices with more realistic contact transmissivities, which may be good or bad depending on whether strain-insensitive or strain-sensitive performance is desired for a particular application and may be possible to modify with improved contact geometries.