No Arabic abstract
The effect of Coulomb scattering on graphene conductivity in field effect transistor structures is discussed. Inter-particle scattering (electron-electron, hole-hole, and electron-hole) and scattering on charged defects are taken into account in a wide range of gate voltages. It is shown that an intrinsic conductivity of graphene (purely ambipolar system where both electron and hole densities exactly coincide) is defined by strong electron-hole scattering. It has a universal value independent of temperature. We give an explicit derivation based on scaling theory. When there is even a small discrepancy in electron and hole densities caused by applied gate voltage the conductivity is determined by both strong electron-hole scattering and weak external scattering: on defects or phonons. We suggest that a density of charged defects (occupancy of defects) depends on Fermi energy to explain a sub-linear dependence of conductivity on a fairly high gate voltage observed in experiments. We also eliminate contradictions between experimental data obtained in deposited and suspended graphene structures regarding graphene conductivity.
Using a novel structure, consisting of two, independently contacted graphene single layers separated by an ultra-thin dielectric, we experimentally measure the Coulomb drag of massless fermions in graphene. At temperatures higher than 50 K, the Coulomb drag follows a temperature and carrier density dependence consistent with the Fermi liquid regime. As the temperature is reduced, the Coulomb drag exhibits giant fluctuations with an increasing amplitude, thanks to the interplay between coherent transport in the graphene layer and interaction between the two layers.
In the recent paper [arXiv:0802.2216, 15 Feb 2008], Kashuba argued that the intrinsic conductivity of graphene independent of temperature originated in strong electron-hole scattering. We propose a much more explicit derivation based on a scaling theory approach. We also give an explanation of a rapid increase in graphene conductivity caused by applied gate voltage.
The effect of weak potential and bond disorder on the density of states of graphene is studied. By comparing the self-consistent non-crossing approximation on the honeycomb lattice with perturbation theory on the Dirac fermions, we conclude, that the linear density of states of pure graphene changes to a non-universal power-law, whose exponent depends on the strength of disorder like 1-4g/sqrt{3}t^2pi, with g the variance of the Gaussian disorder, t the hopping integral. This can result in a significant suppression of the exponent of the density of states in the weak-disorder limit. We argue, that even a non-linear density of states can result in a conductivity being proportional to the number of charge carriers, in accordance with experimental findings.
We study the effect of SiC substrate on thermal conductivity of epitaxial graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) using the nonequilibrium molecular dynamics method. We show that the substrate has strong interaction with single-layer GNRs during the thermal transport, which largely reduces the thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity characteristics of suspended GNRs are well preserved in the second GNR layers of bilayer GNR, which has a weak van der Waals interaction with the underlying structures. The out-of-plane phonon mode is found to play a critical role on the thermal conductivity variation of the second GNR layer induced by the underlying structures.
The conductivity of graphene samples with various levels of disorder is investigated for a set of specimens with mobility in the range of $1-20times10^3$ cm$^2$/V sec. Comparing the experimental data with the theoretical transport calculations based on charged impurity scattering, we estimate that the impurity concentration in the samples varies from $2-15times 10^{11}$ cm$^{-2}$. In the low carrier density limit, the conductivity exhibits values in the range of $2-12e^2/h$, which can be related to the residual density induced by the inhomogeneous charge distribution in the samples. The shape of the conductivity curves indicates that high mobility samples contain some short range disorder whereas low mobility samples are dominated by long range scatterers.