Nanotransistor Gate-Oxide Tunneling Leakage

Modern nanotransistors control a conducting channel with a metal gate separated from it by an insulating oxide only a few atoms thick. This simulator renders that structure in 3D — source, channel, gate oxide and gate — flows electrons along the channel under a drain-source field, and computes, using the WKB approximation for a rectangular tunneling barrier, the probability that a channel electron quantum-mechanically tunnels straight through the oxide into the gate instead of staying classically confined. Shrink the oxide thickness, switch between a SiO₂ and a high-k HfO₂ dielectric, or dial in the gate voltage to see exactly why sub-nanometer gate oxides leak so much current that the semiconductor industry had to switch dielectrics to keep scaling transistors down.