Electro-Thermal Simulation of Vertical VO₂ Thermal-Electronic Circuit Elements

Abstract

Advancement of classical silicon-based circuit technology is approaching maturity and saturation. The worldwide research is now focusing wide range of potential technologies for the “More than Moore” era. One of these technologies is thermal-electronic logic circuits based on the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition of vanadium dioxide, a possible future logic circuits to replace the conventional circuits. In thermal-electronic circuits, information flows in a combination of thermal and electronic signals. Design of these circuits will be possible once appropriate device models become available. Characteristics of vanadium dioxide are under research by preparing structures in laboratory and their validation by simulation models. Modeling and simulation of these devices is challenging due to several nonlinearities, discussed in this article. Introduction of custom finite volumes method simulator has however improved handling of special properties of vanadium dioxide. This paper presents modeling and electro-thermal simulation of vertically structured devices of different dimensions, 10 nm to 300 nm layer thicknesses and 200 nm to 30 μm radii. Results of this research will facilitate determination of sample sizes in the next phase of device modeling.

Keywords

• beyond CMOS
• VO₂
• thermal-electronic circuits
• electro-thermal simulation
• vertical structure