Theoretical study of potential performance of armchair graphene nanoribbon field effect transistors: Dependence on channel dimensions and contact resistance

In this paper, we examine the performance limitations of graphene nanoribbon field effect transistors (GNRFETs) with various channel dimensions and electrode contact resistances. To do this, we formulate a self-consistent non-equilibrium Green's function method in conjunction with the Poisson equation. We model the behavior of GNRFETs with nanometer dimensions and relatively large bandgaps operating as metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) and calculate their performance including contact resistance effects typically occurring at the graphene nanoribbon (GNR) channel and electrodes. We propose a metric for GNRFETs to compete with the current silicon CMOS high performance or low power devices and explain that this can vary significantly depending on the contact resistance.