Conductance fluctuations in Si nanowires studied from first-principles

We study how the variability of the conductance associated with single-dopant configurations affects the overall conductivity of long, realistic ultrathin Si nanowires (NW). We calculate the resistance associated with each single-dopant configuration from density-functional theory (DFT) calculations and we sum them up classically to obtain the resistance of the long wire. This allows to identify limiting factors for the performance of Si NWs based devices. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.