No Arabic abstract
Two-dimensional (2D) crystals, such as graphene, hexagonal boron nitride and transitional metal dichalcogenides, have attracted tremendous amount of attention over the past decade due to their extraordinary thermal, electrical and optical properties, making them promising nano-materials for the next-generation electronic systems. A large number of heterostructures have been fabricated by stacking of various 2D materials to achieve different functionalities. In this work, we simulate the electron transport properties of a three-terminal multilayer heterostructure made from graphene nanoribbons vertically sandwiching a boron nitride tunneling barrier. To investigate the effects of the unavoidable misalignment in experiments, we introduce a tunable angular misorientation between 2D layers to the modeled system. Current-Voltage (I-V) characteristics of the device exhibit multiple NDR peaks originating from distinct mechanisms. A unique NDR mechanism arising from the lattice mismatch is captured and it depends on both the twisting angle and voltage bias. Analytical expressions for the positions of the resonant peaks observed in I-V characteristic are developed. To capture the slight degradation of PVR ratios observed in experiments when temperature increases from 2K to 300K, electron-photon scattering decoherence has been added to the simulation, indicating a good agreement with experiment works as well as a robust preservation of resonant tunneling feature.
Recent developments in the technology of van der Waals heterostructures made from two-dimensional atomic crystals have already led to the observation of new physical phenomena, such as the metal-insulator transition and Coulomb drag, and to the realisation of functional devices, such as tunnel diodes, tunnel transistors and photovoltaic sensors. An unprecedented degree of control of the electronic properties is available not only by means of the selection of materials in the stack but also through the additional fine-tuning achievable by adjusting the built-in strain and relative orientation of the component layers. Here we demonstrate how careful alignment of the crystallographic orientation of two graphene electrodes, separated by a layer of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) in a transistor device, can achieve resonant tunnelling with conservation of electron energy, momentum and, potentially, chirality. We show how the resonance peak and negative differential conductance in the device characteristics induces a tuneable radio-frequency oscillatory current which has potential for future high frequency technology.
Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is drawing increasing attention as an insulator and substrate material to develop next generation graphene-based electronic devices. In this paper, we investigate the quantum transport in heterostructures consisting of a few atomic layers thick hBN film sandwiched between graphene nanoribbon electrodes. We show a gate-controllable vertical transistor exhibiting strong negative differential resistance (NDR) effect with multiple resonant peaks, which stay pronounced for various device dimensions. We find two distinct mechanisms that are responsible for NDR, depending on the gate and applied biases, in the same device. The origin of first mechanism is a Fabry-Pe like interference and that of the second mechanism is an in-plane wave vector matching when the Dirac points of the electrodes align. The hBN layers can induce an asymmetry in the current-voltage characteristics which can be further modulated by an applied bias. We find that the electron-phonon scattering introduces the decoherence and therefore suppresses first mechanism whereas second mechanism remains relatively unaffected. We also show that the NDR features are tunable by varying device dimensions. The NDR feature with multiple resonant peaks, combined with the ultrafast tunneling speed provides prospect for the graphene-hBN-graphene heterostructure in the high-performance electronics.
The relative twist angle in heterostructures of two-dimensional (2D) materials with similar lattice constants result in a dramatic alteration of the electronic properties. Here, we investigate the electrical and magnetotransport properties in bilayer graphene (BLG) encapsulated between two hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) crystals, where the top and bottom hBN are rotationally aligned with bilayer graphene with a twist angle $theta_tsim 0^{circ} text{and}~ theta_b < 1^{circ}$, respectively. This results in the formation of two moire superlattices, with the appearance of satellite resistivity peaks at carrier densities $n_{s1}$ and $n_{s2}$, in both hole and electron doped regions, together with the resistivity peak at zero carrier density. Furthermore, we measure the temperature(T) dependence of the resistivity ($rho$). The resistivity shows a linear increment with temperature within the range 10K to 50K for the density regime $n_{s1} <n<n_{s2}$ with a large slope d$rho$/dT $sim$ 8.5~$Omega$/K. The large slope of d$rho$/dT is attributed to the enhanced electron-phonon coupling arising due to the suppression of Fermi velocity in the reconstructed minibands, which was theoretically predicted, recently in doubly aligned graphene with top and bottom hBN. Our result establishes the uniqueness of doubly aligned moire system to tune the strength of electron-phonon coupling and to modify the electronic properties of multilayered heterostructures.
We report on the first model of a thermal transistor to control heat flow. Like its electronic counterpart, our thermal transistor is a three-terminal device with the important feature that the current through the two terminals can be controlled by small changes in the temperature or in the current through the third terminal. This control feature allows us to switch the device between off (insulating) and on (conducting) states or to amplify a small current. The thermal transistor model is possible because of the negative differential thermal resistance.
We demonstrate a tunable negative differential resistance controlled by spin blockade in single electron transistors. The single electron transistors containing a few electrons and spin polarized source and drain contacts were formed in GaAs/GaAlAs heterojunctions using metallic gates. Coulomb blockade measurements performed as a function of applied source-drain bias, electron number and magnetic field reveal well defined regimes where a decrease in the current is observed with increasing bias. We establish that the origin of the negative differential regime is the spin-polarized detection of electrons combined with a long spin relaxation time in the dot. These results indicate new functionalities that may be utilized in nano-spintronic devices in which the spin state is electro-statically controlled via the electron occupation number.