No Arabic abstract
The specific rotational alignment of two-dimensional lattices results in a moire superlattice with a larger period than the original lattices and allows one to engineer the electronic band structure of such materials. So far, transport signatures of such superlattices have been reported for graphene/hBN and graphene/graphene systems. Here we report moire superlattices in fully hBN encapsulated graphene with both the top and the bottom hBN aligned to the graphene. In the graphene, two different moire superlattices form with the top and the bottom hBN, respectively. The overlay of the two superlattices can result in a third superlattice with a period larger than the maximum period (14 nm) in the graphene/hBN system, which we explain in a simple model. This new type of band structure engineering allows one to artificially create an even wider spectrum of electronic properties in two-dimensional materials.
We study room temperature spin transport in graphene devices encapsulated between a layer-by-layer-stacked two-layer-thick chemical vapour deposition (CVD) grown hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) tunnel barrier, and a few-layer-thick exfoliated-hBN substrate. We find mobilities and spin-relaxation times comparable to that of SiO$_2$ substrate based graphene devices, and obtain a similar order of magnitude of spin relaxation rates for both the Elliott-Yafet and DYakonov-Perel mechanisms. The behaviour of ferromagnet/two-layer-CVD-hBN/graphene/hBN contacts ranges from transparent to tunneling due to inhomogeneities in the CVD-hBN barriers. Surprisingly, we find both positive and negative spin polarizations for high-resistance two-layer-CVD-hBN barrier contacts with respect to the low-resistance contacts. Furthermore, we find that the differential spin injection polarization of the high-resistance contacts can be modulated by DC bias from -0.3 V to +0.3 V with no change in its sign, while its magnitude increases at higher negative bias. These features mark a distinctive spin injection nature of the two-layer-CVD-hBN compared to the bilayer-exfoliated-hBN tunnel barriers.
Encapsulating graphene in hexagonal Boron Nitride has several advantages: the highest mobilities reported to date are achieved in this way, and precise nanostructuring of graphene becomes feasible through the protective hBN layers. Nevertheless, subtle effects may arise due to the differing lattice constants of graphene and hBN, and due to the twist angle between the graphene and hBN lattices. Here, we use a recently developed model which allows us to perform band structure and magnetotransport calculations of such structures, and show that with a proper account of the moire physics an excellent agreement with experiments can be achieved, even for complicated structures such as disordered graphene, or antidot lattices on a monolayer hBN with a relative twist angle. Calculations of this kind are essential to a quantitative modeling of twistronic devices.
Second-order nonlinear optical response allows to detect different properties of the system associated with the inversion symmetry breaking. Here, we use a second harmonic generation effect to investigate the alignment of a graphene/hexagonal Boron Nitride heterostructure. To achieve that, we activate a commensurate-incommensurate phase transition by a thermal annealing of the sample. We find that this structural change in the system can be directly observed through a strong modification of a nonlinear optical signal. This result reveals the potential of a second harmonic generation technique for probing structural properties of layered systems.
We study spin transport in a fully hBN encapsulated monolayer-graphene van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure, at room temperature. A top-layer of bilayer-hBN is used as a tunnel barrier for spin-injection and detection in graphene with ferromagnetic cobalt electrodes. We report surprisingly large and bias induced (differential) spin-injection (detection) polarizations up to 50% (135%) at a positive voltage bias of +0.6 V, as well as sign inverted polarizations up to -70% (-60%) at a reverse bias of -0.4 V. This demonstrates the potential of bilayer-hBN tunnel barriers for practical graphene spintronics applications. With such enhanced spin-injection and detection polarizations, we report a record two-terminal (inverted) spin-valve signals up to 800 $Omega$ with a magnetoresistance ratio of 2.7%, and we achieve spin accumulations up to 4.1 meV. We propose how these numbers can be increased further, for future technologically relevant graphene based spintronic devices.
We present a theoretical study of electronic and thermal transport in polycrystalline heterostructures combining graphene (G) and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) grains of varying size and distribution. By increasing the hBN grain density from a few percents to $100%$, the system evolves from a good conductor to an insulator, with the mobility dropping by orders of magnitude and the sheet resistance reaching the M$Omega$ regime. The Seebeck coefficient is suppressed above $40%$ mixing, while the thermal conductivity of polycrystalline hBN is found to be on the order of $30-120,{rm W}{rm m}^{-1}{rm K}^{-1}$. These results, agreeing with available experimental data, provide guidelines for tuning G-hBN properties in the context of two-dimensional materials engineering. In particular, while we proved that both electrical and thermal properties are largely affected by morphological features (like e.g. by the grain size and composition), we find in all cases that nm-sized polycrystalline G-hBN heterostructures are not good thermoelectric materials.