Impact of Externally Induced Uniaxial Stress on the Electrical Performance of the Junctionless Nanowire Field-Effect Transistors

The uniaxial tensile mechanical stress (MS) is induced up to 1.4 GPa on the channel of the twin junctionless nanowire (JL-NW) gate-all-around (GAA) field-effect transistors (FETs) using a four-point bending technique. The variation of the electrical parameters is measured before and during induced MS to analyze the performance. The ON-state current, carrier mobility, threshold voltage, and subthreshold swing are directly proportional to the induced MS due to the reduced energy band gap and intervalley scattering effect. The reduced subthreshold swing indicates low power consumption and better switching ability, whereas the higher OFF-state current leads to slightly increased standby power consumption, representing a trade-off for low-power logic applications. In addition, the change of drain current shows highly piezoresistive sensing ability in nanoelectromechanical sensor applications. Thus, this study demonstrates the importance of mechanical stress engineering for performance improvement in non-planar nanowire devices, piezoresistive sensing applications, and device reliability.