No Arabic abstract
Interfacial charge transfer plays an essential role in establishing the relative alignment of the metal Fermi level and the energy bands of organic semiconductors. While the details remain elusive in many systems, this charge transfer has been inferred in a number of photoemission experiments. We present electronic transport measurements in very short channel ($L < 100$ nm) transistors made from poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT). As channel length is reduced, the evolution of the contact resistance and the zero-gate-voltage conductance are consistent with such charge transfer. Short channel conduction in devices with Pt contacts is greatly enhanced compared to analogous devices with Au contacts, consistent with charge transfer expectations. Alternating current scanning tunneling microscopy (ACSTM) provides further evidence that holes are transferred from Pt into P3HT, while much less charge transfer takes place at the Au/P3HT interface.
Heterostructures of 2D van der Waals semiconductor materials offer a diverse playground for exploring fundamental physics and potential device applications. In InSe/GaSe heterostructures formed by sequential mechanical exfoliation and stacking of 2D monochalcogenides InSe and GaSe, we observe charge transfer between InSe and GaSe due to the 2D van der Waals interface formation and a strong hysteresis effect in the electron transport through the InSe layer when a gate voltage is applied through the GaSe layer. A gate voltage dependant conductance decay rate is also observed. We relate these observations to the gate voltage dependant dynamical charge transfer between InSe and GaSe layers.
Graphene is one of the stiffest known materials, with a Youngs modulus of 1 TPa, making it an ideal candidate for use as a reinforcement in high-performance composites. However, being a one-atom thick crystalline material, graphene poses several fundamental questions: (1) can decades of research on carbon-based composites be applied to such an ultimately-thin crystalline material? (2) is continuum mechanics used traditionally with composites still valid at the atomic level? (3) how does the matrix interact with the graphene crystals and what kind of theoretical description is appropriate? We have demonstrated unambiguously that stress transfer takes place from the polymer matrix to monolayer graphene, showing that the graphene acts as a reinforcing phase. We have also modeled the behavior using shear-lag theory, showing that graphene monolayer nanocomposites can be analyzed using continuum mechanics. Additionally, we have been able to monitor stress transfer efficiency and breakdown of the graphene/polymer interface.
Magnetoelectric coupling in ferromagnet/multiferroic systems is often manifested in the exchange bias effect, which may have combined contributions from multiple sources, such as domain walls, chemical defects or strain. In this study we magnetically fingerprint the coupling behavior of CoFe grown on epitaxial BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films by magnetometry and first-order-reversal-curves (FORC). The contribution to exchange bias from 71{deg}, 109{deg} and charged ferroelectric domain walls (DWs) was elucidated by the FORC distribution. CoFe samples grown on BFO with 71{deg} DWs only exhibit an enhancement of the coercivity, but little exchange bias. Samples grown on BFO with 109{deg} DWs and mosaic DWs exhibit a much larger exchange bias, with the main enhancement attributed to 109{deg} and charged DWs. Based on the Malozemoff random field model, a varying-anisotropy model is proposed to account for the exchange bias enhancement. This work sheds light on the relationship between the exchange bias effect of the CoFe/BFO heterointerface and the ferroelectric DWs, and provides a path for multiferroic device analysis and design.
(LaNiO3)n/(LaMnO3)2 superlattices were grown using ozone-assisted molecular beam epitaxy, where LaNiO3 is a paramagnetic metal and LaMnO3 is an antiferromagnetic insulator. The superlattices exhibit excellent crystallinity and interfacial roughness of less than 1 unit cell. X-ray spectroscopy and dichroism measurements indicate that electrons are transferred from the LaMnO3 to the LaNiO3, inducing magnetism in LaNiO3. Magnetotransport measurements reveal a transition from metallic to insulating behavior as the LaNiO3 layer thickness is reduced from 5 unit cells to 2 unit cells and suggest a modulated magnetic structure within LaNiO3.
We report electrical characterization of monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) devices using a thin layer of polymer electrolyte consisting of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and lithium perchlorate (LiClO4) as both a contact-barrier reducer and channel mobility booster. We find that bare MoS2 devices (without polymer electrolyte) fabricated on Si/SiO2 have low channel mobility and large contact resistance, both of which severely limit the field-effect mobility of the devices. A thin layer of PEO/ LiClO4 deposited on top of the devices not only substantially reduces the contact resistance but also boost the channel mobility, leading up to three-orders-of-magnitude enhancement of the field-effect mobility of the device. When the polymer electrolyte is used as a gate medium, the MoS2 field-effect transistors exhibit excellent device characteristics such as a near ideal subthreshold swing and an on/off ratio of 106 as a result of the strong gate-channel coupling.