Theoretical performance estimation of silicene, germanene, and graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistors under ballistic transport

Silicene or germanene is a monolayer honeycomb lattice made of Si or Ge, similar to graphene made of C. In this work, we have assessed the performance potentials of silicene nanoribbon (SiNR), germanene nanoribbon (GeNR), and graphene nanoribbon (GNR), which all have a sufficient band gap to switch off, as field-effect transistor (FET) channel materials. We have demonstrated that, by comparing at the same band gap of ∼0.5 eV, the GNR FET maintains an advantage over SiNR or GeNR FETs under an ideal transport situation, but SiNR and GeNR are attractive channel materials for high-performance FETs as well.