Modelling of the thermoelectrical performance of devices based on VO2

Abstract

By reaching the limits of conventional silicon-based integrated circuits, more and more effort is done to develop new devices for integrated circuits. A promising structure is based on the semiconductor-to-metal phase change of vanadium-dioxide at about 67°C. In these circuits the information is carried by combined thermal and electrical currents. Thermal effects cannot be separated so well in thermal-electronic circuits as electrical effects in electronic circuits thus, accurate distributed electrothermal simulation is mandatory. This paper presents three VO2 material models, the algorithmic extension of an electrothermal field simulator to be able to handle the hysteresis of VO2 and the modelling of VO2 based devices. The paper compares measured and simulated device characteristics.