Electron transport characteristics of a novel wide band gap ternary carbide, Al4SiC4, to be used for efficient power and optoelectronic applications, are predicted using ensemble Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The MC simulations use a mixture of material parameters obtained from density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experiment, with a preference for the experimental data if they are known. The DFT calculations predict a band gap of 2.48 eV, while the experimental measurements give a band gap between 2.78 and 2.8 eV. We have found that the electron effective mass in the two lowest valleys (M and K) is highly anisotropic; in the K valley, m t * = 0.5678 m e and m l * = 0.6952 m e, and for the M valley, m t * = 0.9360 m e and m l * = 1.0569 m e. We simulate electron drift velocity and electron mobility as a function of applied electric field as well as electron mobility as a function of doping concentration in Al4SiC4. We predict a peak electron drift velocity of 1.35 × 107 cm s–1 at an electric field of 1400 kV cm–1 and a maximum electron mobility of 82.9 cm2 V–1 s–1. We have seen diffusion constants of 2.14 cm2 s–1 at a low electric field and 0.25 cm2 s–1 at a high electric field. Finally, we show that Al4SiC4 has a critical field of 1831 kV cm–1.

Wide band gap SiC/Al 4 SiC 4 heterostructure transistor with a gate length of 5 µm is designed using a ternary carbide of Al 4 SiC 4 and its performance simulated by Silvaco Atlas. The simulations use a mixture of parameters obtained from ensemble Monte Carlo simulations, DFT calculations, and experimental data. The 5 µm gate length transistor is then laterally scaled to 2 µm and 1 µm gate length devices. The 5 µm gate length SiC/Al 4 SiC 4 heterostructure transistor delivers a maximum drain current of 168 mA/mm, which increases to 244 mA/mm and 350 mA/mm for gate lengths of 2 µm and 1 µm, respectively. The device breakdown voltage is 59.0 V which reduces to 31.0 V and to 18.0 V in the scaled 2 µm and the 1 µm gate length transistors. The scaled down 1 µm gate length device switches faster thanks to a higher transconductance of 65.1 mS/mm compared to only 1.69 mS/mm by the 5 µm gate length device.Finally, a sub-threshold slope of the scaled devices is 197.3 mV/dec, 97.6 mV/dec, and 96.1 mV/dec for gate lengths of 5 µm, 2 µm, and 1 µm, respectively.