No Arabic abstract
Graphene based transistors relying on a conventional structure cannot switch properly because of the absence of an energy gap in graphene. To overcome this limitation, a barristor device was proposed, whose operation is based on the modulation of the graphene-semiconductor (GS) Schottky barrier by means of a top gate, and demonstrating an ON-OFF current ratio up to $10^5$. Such a large number is likely due to the realization of an ultra clean interface with virtually no interface trapped charge. However, it is indeed technologically relevant to know the impact that the interface trapped charges might have on the barristors electrical properties. We have developed a physics based model of the gate tunable GS heterostructure where non-idealities such as Fermi Level Pinning (FLP) and a bias dependent barrier lowering effect has been considered. Using the model we have made a comprehensive study of the barristors expected digital performance.
We report an efficient technique to induce gate-tunable two-dimensional superlattices in graphene by the combined action of a back gate and a few-layer graphene patterned bottom gate complementary to existing methods. The patterned gates in our approach can be easily fabricated and implemented in van der Waals stacking procedures allowing flexible use of superlattices with arbitrary geometry. In transport measurements on a superlattice with lattice constant $a=40$ nm well pronounced satellite Dirac points and signatures of the Hofstadter butterfly including a non-monotonic quantum Hall response are observed. Furthermore, the experimental results are accurately reproduced in transport simulations and show good agreement with features in the calculated band structure. Overall, we present a comprehensive picture of graphene-based superlattices, featuring a broad range of miniband effects, both in experiment and in theoretical modeling. The presented technique is suitable for studying more advanced geometries which are not accessible by other methods.
It is demonstrated that the electric dipole layer due to the overlapping of electron wavefunctions at metal/graphene contact results in negative Fermi-level pinning effect on the region of GaAs surface with low interface-trap density in metal/graphene/n-GaAs(001) junction. The graphene interlayer takes a role of diffusion barrier preventing the atomic intermixing at interface and preserving the low interface-trap density region. The negative Fermi-level pinning effect is supported by the Schottky barrier decreasing as metal work-function increasing. Our work shows that the graphene interlayer can invert the effective work-function of metal between $high$ and $low$, making it possible to form both Schottky and Ohmic-like contacts with identical (particularly $high$ work-function) metal electrodes on a semiconductor substrate possessing low surface-state density.
Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors have shown great promise in (opto)electronic applications. However, their developments are limited by a large Schottky barrier (SB) at the metal-semiconductor junction (MSJ), which is difficult to tune by using conventional metals due to the strong Fermi level pinning (FLP) effect. Here we show that, this problem can be overcome by using 2D metals, which are bounded with 2D semiconductors through van der Waals (vdW) interaction. This success relies on a weak FLP at the vdW MSJ, which is attributed to the suppression of metal-induced gap states. Consequently, the SB becomes tunable and can vanish with proper 2D metals (e.g. H-NbS2). This work not only offers new insights into the fundamental properties of heterojunctions, but also uncovers great potential of 2D metals in device applications.
We analyze the effect of screening provided by the additional graphene layer in double layer graphene heterostructures (DLGs) on transport characteristics of DLG devices in the metallic regime. The effect of gate-tunable charge density in the additional layer is two-fold: it provides screening of the long-range potential of charged defects in the system, and screens out Coulomb interactions between charge carriers. We find that the efficiency of defect charge screening is strongly dependent on the concentration and location of defects within the DLG. In particular, only a moderate suppression of electron-hole puddles around the Dirac point induced by the high concentration of remote impurities in the silicon oxide substrate could be achieved. A stronger effect is found on the elastic relaxation rate due to charged defects resulting in mobility strongly dependent on the electron denisty in the additional layer of DLG. We find that the quantum interference correction to the resistivity of graphene is also strongly affected by screening in DLG. In particular, the dephasing rate is strongly suppressed by the additional screening that supresses the amplitude of electron-electron interaction and reduces the diffusion time that electrons spend in proximity of each other. The latter effect combined with screening of elastic relaxation rates results in a peculiar gate tunable weak-localization magnetoresistance and quantum correction to resistivity. We propose suitable experiments to test our theory and discuss the possible relevance of our results to exisiting data.
Valley pseudospin, the quantum degree of freedom characterizing the degenerate valleys in energy bands, is a distinct feature of two-dimensional Dirac materials. Similar to spin, the valley pseudospin is spanned by a time reversal pair of states, though the two valley pseudospin states transform to each other under spatial inversion. The breaking of inversion symmetry induces various valley-contrasted physical properties; for instance, valley-dependent topological transport is of both scientific and technological interests. Bilayer graphene (BLG) is a unique system whose intrinsic inversion symmetry can be controllably broken by a perpendicular electric field, offering a rare possibility for continuously tunable valley-topological transport. Here, we used a perpendicular gate electric field to break the inversion symmetry in BLG, and a giant nonlocal response was observed as a result of the topological transport of the valley pseudospin. We further showed that the valley transport is fully tunable by external gates, and that the nonlocal signal persists up to room temperature and over long distances. These observations challenge contemporary understanding of topological transport in a gapped system, and the robust topological transport may lead to future valleytronic applications.