Silicon nanowire field-effect transistors (SiNWFETs) have been fabricated with a highly simplified integration scheme to function as Schottky barrier transistors with excellent enhancement-mode characteristics and a high on/off current ratio∼ 10 7. SiNWFETs show significant improvement in the thermal emission leakage (∼ 6× 10− 13 A µm− 1) compared to reference FETs with a larger channel width (∼ 7× 10− 10 A µm− 1). The drain current level depends substantially on the contact metal work function as determined by examining devices with different source/drain contacts of Ti (≈ 4.33 eV) and Cr (≈ 4.50 eV). The different conduction mechanisms for accumulation-and inversion-mode operation are discussed and compared with two-dimensional numerical simulation results.