We have simultaneously measured conductance and thermoelectric power (TEP) of individual silicon and germanium/silicon core/shell nanowires in the field effect transistor device configuration. As the applied gate voltage changes, the TEP shows distin
ctly different behaviors while the electrical conductance exhibits the turn-off, subthreshold, and saturation regimes respectively. At room temperature, peak TEP value of $sim 300 mu$V/K is observed in the subthreshold regime of the Si devices. The temperature dependence of the saturated TEP values are used to estimate the carrier doping of Si nanowires.
We report an electron transport study of lithographically fabricated graphene nanoribbons of various widths and lengths at different temperatures. At the charge neutrality point, a length-independent transport gap forms whose size is inversely propor
tional to the width. In this gap, electron is localized, and charge transport exhibits a transition between simple thermally activated behavior at higher temperatures and a variable range hopping at lower temperatures. By varying the geometric capacitance through the addition of top gates, we find that charging effects constitute a significant portion of the activation energy.
The quantum Hall effect near the charge neutrality point in bilayer graphene is investigated in high magnetic fields of up to 35 T using electronic transport measurements. In the high field regime, the eight-fold degeneracy in the zero energy Landau
level is completely lifted, exhibiting new quantum Hall states corresponding filling factors $ u=$0, 1, 2, & 3. Measurements of the activation energy gap in tilted magnetic fields suggest that the Landau level splitting at the newly formed $ u=$1, 2, & 3 filling factors are independent of spin, consistent with the formation of a quantum Hall ferromagnet. In addition, measurements taken at the $ u$ = 0 charge neutral point show that, similar to single layer graphene, the bilayer becomes insulating at high fields.
We have developed a device fabrication process to pattern graphene into nanostructures of arbitrary shape and control their electronic properties using local electrostatic gates. Electronic transport measurements have been used to characterize locall
y gated bipolar graphene $p$-$n$-$p$ junctions. We observe a series of fractional quantum Hall conductance plateaus at high magnetic fields as the local charge density is varied in the $p$ and $n$ regions. These fractional plateaus, originating from chiral edge states equilibration at the $p$-$n$ interfaces, exhibit sensitivity to inter-edge backscattering which is found to be strong for some of the plateuas and much weaker for other plateaus. We use this effect to explore the role of backscattering and estimate disorder strength in our graphene devices.
We have developed the combination of an etching and deposition technique that enables the fabrication of locally gated graphene nanostructures of arbitrary design. Employing this method, we have fabricated graphene nanoconstrictions with local tunabl
e transmission and characterized their electronic properties. An order of magnitude enhanced gate efficiency is achieved adopting the local gate geometry with thin dielectric gate oxide. A complete turn off of the device is demonstrated as a function of the local gate voltage. Such strong suppression of device conductance was found to be due to both quantum confinement and Coulomb blockade effects in the constricted graphene nanostructures.
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.
We present an experimental investigation on the scaling of resistance in individual single walled carbon nanotube devices with channel lengths that vary four orders of magnitude on the same sample. The electron mean free path is obtained from the lin
ear scaling of resistance with length at various temperatures. The low temperature mean free path is determined by impurity scattering, while at high temperature the mean free path decreases with increasing temperature, indicating that it is limited by electron-phonon scattering. An unusually long mean free path at room temperature has been experimentally confirmed. Exponentially increasing resistance with length at extremely long length scales suggests anomalous localization effects.
