To add some comments, sde does not need parameter file. After you assign new materials in sde, sdevice will calculate physics using tdr file made by sde and parameter file you wrote.

If the material that you want to include was not in the "include parameter files" option, then you need to assign that material in the parameter file.

Best regards,

Jun-Sik Yoon

Here is a procedure (on Linux):

1. The first step is to generate a new .par file for your material. The idea is to add this "parameter" file containing the information about the physical properties specific to your material into your Sentaurus Workbench so that you can choose to use it in your project.For the sake of this explanation, let's pretend we are generating a parameter file for the material Vanadium.

2. In order to create the Vanadium.par file, we will first generate a default .par file for silicon, which we will use as a template. To generate this template file, open the Linux terminal in the folder where your Sentaurus project is located and type in the command: sdevice -P. This command will generate a text file called models.par in our folder (you may need to refresh the folder if you're using a GUI to see it appear there). This file contains all the default physical properties of silicon, which we will change to those of vanadium.

3. The next step is to rename this models.par file to Vanadium.par and to open it in a text editor of your choice.

4. The parameter file we have open now contains all the necessary physical information about the material you want to simulate. Some key parameters here include the effective electron/hole mass, dielectric permittivity, etc. This is where you edit the parameters which were generated automatically, which are that of Si, to the ones associated with your material. You will need to look up the appropriate values for your material and be mindful of the units, which are usually specified beside each parameter in square brackets.

5. Within each .par file, there are multiple physics models that you can choose to tell Sentaurus to use when calculating charge transport across your device. For example, calling the HighFieldDependence model in your SDEVICE command file (sdevice.cmd) will tell Sentaurus to consider how the carrier mobility saturates when the lateral electric field is increased to high values. Within HighFieldDependence in the Vanadium.par file, there are multiple formulae which you can assign to HighFieldDependence to account for this physical relationship. Which model you choose is up to you, and it depends on the material you are using. Empirical models are available for many materials in the literature, so you can define your own formulae within HighFieldDependence and ask Sentaurus to use them when it simulates the device, by changing the reference number beside the Vsat_Formula field, for example.Note: There are two numbers separated by a comma in many of the parameters in the .par file. The first is the value for electrons, the second is the value for holes.

6. OK, let's say you have found the physical parameters for vanadium in the literature, you've replaced them in the .par file and are happy with the physical models you have specified for vanadium. We now need to place the Vanadium.par file in a folder that will be accessible to your Sentaurus project, and we need to register the existence of this .par file into a global database which Sentaurus checks to run the simulations.

7. This step is specific to each person's machine. You need to find the installation path of Sentaurus on your computer. Once there, you need to find the /lib/ folder. This folder contains a text file called datexcodes.txt. This is the database file into which we need to register the material vanadium. To do this, we use the following syntax:Vanadium {label="Vanadium"group=Conductorcolor=#000000, #ffffff}The group can be either Conductor, Semiconductor or Insulator. In the case of vanadium, we choose Conductor, but for another material, you may need to change this accordingly. The hexadecimal color codes will specify what the material will look like during visualizations. The label entry is important. Whatever is written between the quotation marks there is the exact name you will have to use when calling this material in your command files to let Sentaurus know this is the material you want to specify for a given region.

8. In the /lib/ directory there should also be another directory called /sdevice/. In it, you will find a folder called MaterialDB. This is the folder into which you copy the Vanadium.par file you've already edited.Notes on steps 7 & 8: depending on the exact setup of your installation, you may be able to copy the MaterialDB folder and the datexcodes.txt file into your Sentaurus working directory where your projects are located, and the program will be able to source the information about materials from there directly, rather than referring to the files hidden deep in the /lib/ path. The Sentaurus search hierarchy starts with the local directory, before moving onto these deeper installation folders, but if Sentaurus cannot communicate with the right database it will throw up an error stating this when you try to run the simulation.

9. Now it's time to add the parameter file to your Sentaurus project. A sufficient way to do this for the SDEVICE Tool column in your Sentaurus Workbench is to right-click on the column, choose Edit Input and choose the Include Materials... window. Vanadium should have been added to the list of available materials, with a checkbox next to it which can be ticked, if everything worked fine in the back-end. Also, note that the .cmd file used in the SDEVICE Tool will need to refer to the internally-defined parameter file you've specified, with the syntax:File {parameter="@parameter@"}

10. The SNMESH Tool column (located before SDEVICE in your Workbench) also needs to know which material parameter files to use. To tell it which ones to use, right-click on the column, choose Edit Input and choose Parameter. Here, you can specify the path pointing directly to your Vanadium.par file and you can link it to the label we registered in the database with the following example syntax:#define ParFileDir .Material="Vanadium" {#includeext "ParFileDir/MaterialDB/Vanadium.par"}This snippet tells Sentaurus that the Parameter File Directory is the current folder (.), the material we are talking about in the database is the one with the label Vanadium, and its .par file is located in the MaterialDB folder we have copied into our Parameter File Directory, which is the current project folder.Note: this exact snippet can also be used in the SDEVICE column, by specifying Edit Input -> Parameter. Then you will notice in Include Materials..., the Vanadium box has already been ticked.

11. This should have done the job for us. When you run a simulation node in the Workbench, if it fails (turns red) you can check its output with Ctrl+W. If it complains about anything to do with the material choice, it will state it in this output when you scroll down to the bottom of the report. If it's a problem with the text inside the Vanadium.par file, it will say something like "Insulators cannot have electron mass more than 0!" or "Invalid syntax". The clues here are usually good to allow for debugging. If it's a problem with the database, it will specifically mention the datexcodes.txt file. The issue will most likely be with the path, i.e. whether the file it is sourcing information from is located in the deep Sentaurus installation path or it needs to be in the current working directory. Best to just have the same copies of the two in both directories, so that you can avoid these errors.I hope this was exhaustive enough to help people with this somewhat simple problem.

Hi Paul Bisong ,

Thank you so much for your detailed descriptions. Following your comment, I have added a new material Selenium by DATEX in sentaurus TCAD. Now I have to add some basic properties to the material like:

1. Electron and hole mobility (mu_n, mu_p)

2. Conduction band density of states (N_c), Valence Band density of states (N_v)

3. Deep trap density.

Can you please guide me, how can I include these to parameter file?

If you know the codes for parameter file of Selenium material (including those properties I mentioned above) kindly share it with me.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Moumita,

those parameters have sections in the parameter files for the particular material you are working with