We present a full-quantum approach to investigate self-heating effects in nanoelectronic devices and exploit it to simulate rough nanowire field-effect transistors. Self-heating is found to significantly contribute (up to about 16%) to the degradation of the transistor performances, with an impact that is stronger for stronger roughness. The mechanism at the origin of the enhanced back-scattering is the temperature increase due to the thermal conductivity reduction and the consequent increase of electron-phonon coupling. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.
