We have experimentally studied the nonlinear nature of electrical conduction in monolayer graphene devices on silica substrates. This nonlinearity manifests itself as a nonmonotonic dependence of the differential resistance on applied DC voltage bias
across the sample. At temperatures below ~70K, the differential resistance exhibits a peak near zero bias that can be attributed to self-heating of the charge carriers. We show that the shape of this peak arises from a combination of different energy dissipation mechanisms of the carriers. The energy dissipation at higher carrier temperatures depends critically on the length of the sample. For samples longer than 10um the heat loss is shown to be determined by optical phonons at the silica-graphene interface.
The electrical properties of graphene are known to be modified by chemical species that interact with it. We investigate the effect of doping of graphene-based devices by toluene (C6H5CH3). We show that this effect has a complicated character. Toluen
e is seen to act as a donor, transferring electrons to the graphene. However, the degree of doping is seen to depend on the magnitude and polarity of an electric field applied between the graphene and a nearby electrode. This can be understood in terms of an electrochemical reaction mediated by the graphene crystal.
We present the first experimental study of mesoscopic fluctuations of Coulomb drag in a system with two layers of composite fermions, which are seen when either the magnetic field or carrier concentration are varied. These fluctuations cause an alter
nating sign of the average drag. We study these fluctuations at different temperatures to establish the dominant dephasing mechanism of composite fermions.
We have observed reproducible fluctuations of the Coulomb drag, both as a function of magnetic field and electron concentration, which are a manifestation of quantum interference of electrons in the layers. At low temperatures the fluctuations exceed
the average drag, giving rise to random changes of the sign of the drag. The fluctuations are found to be much larger than previously expected, and we propose a model which explains their enhancement by considering fluctuations of local electron properties.
