Wenjuan Zhu

Tunable infrared plasmonic devices using graphene/insulator stacks

Superlattices are artificial periodic nanostructures which can control the flow of electrons. Their operation typically relies on the periodic modulation of the electric potential in the direction of electron wave propagation. Here we demonstrate transparent graphene superlattices which can manipulate infrared photons utilizing the collective oscillations of carriers, i.e., plasmons of the ensemble of multiple graphene layers. The superlattice is formed by depositing alternating wafer-scale graphene sheets and thin insulating layers, followed by patterning them all together into 3-dimensional photonic-crystal-like structures. We demonstrate experimentally that the collective oscillation of Dirac fermions in such graphene superlattices is unambiguously nonclassical: compared to doping single layer graphene, distributing carriers into multiple graphene layers strongly enhances the plasmonic resonance frequency and magnitude, which is fundamentally different from that in a conventional semiconductor superlattice. This property allows us to construct widely tunable far-infrared notch filters with 8.2 dB rejection ratio and terahertz linear polarizers with 9.5 dB extinction ratio, using a superlattice with merely five graphene atomic layers. Moreover, an unpatterned superlattice shields up to 97.5% of the electromagnetic radiations below 1.2 terahertz. This demonstration also opens an avenue for the realization of other transparent mid- and far-infrared photonic devices such as detectors, modulators, and 3-dimensional meta-material systems.The collective oscillation of carriers--the plasmon--in graphene has many desirable properties, including tunability and low loss. However, in single-layer graphene, the dependence on carrier concentration of both the plasmonic resonance frequency and magnitude is relatively weak, limiting its applications in photonics. Here, we demonstrate transparent photonic devices based on graphene/insulator stacks, which are formed by depositing alternating wafer-scale graphene sheets and thin insulating layers, then patterning them together into photonic-crystal-like structures. We show experimentally that the plasmon in such stacks is unambiguously non-classical. Compared with doping in single-layer graphene, distributing carriers into multiple graphene layers effectively enhances the plasmonic resonance frequency and magnitude, which is different from the effect in a conventional semiconductor superlattice and is a direct consequence of the unique carrier density scaling law of the plasmonic resonance of Dirac fermions. Using patterned graphene/insulator stacks, we demonstrate widely tunable far-infrared notch filters with 8.2 dB rejection ratios and terahertz linear polarizers with 9.5 dB extinction ratios. An unpatterned stack consisting of five graphene layers shields 97.5% of electromagnetic radiation at frequencies below 1.2 THz. This work could lead to the development of transparent mid- and far-infrared photonic devices such as detectors, modulators and three-dimensional metamaterial systems.

Damping pathways of mid-infrared plasmons in graphene nanostructures

Mid-infrared plasmons in scaled graphene nanostructures Hugen Yan*, Tony Low, Wenjuan Zhu, Yanqing Wu, Marcus Freitag, Xuesong Li, Francisco Guinea, Phaedon Avouris* and Fengnian Xia* IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid. CSIC. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz 3. 28049 Madrid, Spain Plasmonics takes advantage of the collective response of electrons to electromagnetic waves, enabling dramatic scaling of optical devices beyond the diffraction limit. Here, we demonstrate the mid-infrared (4 to 15 μm) plasmons in deeply scaled graphene nanostructures down to 50 nm, more than 100 times smaller than the onresonance light wavelength in free space. We reveal, for the first time, the crucial damping channels of graphene plasmons via its intrinsic optical phonons and scattering from the edges. A plasmon lifetime of 20 femto-seconds and smaller is observed, when damping through the emission of an optical phonon is allowed. Furthermore, the surface polar phonons in SiO2 substrate underneath the graphene nanostructures lead to a significantly modified plasmon dispersion and damping, in contrast to a non-polar diamond-like-carbon (DLC) substrate. Much reduced damping is realized when the plasmon resonance frequencies are close to the polar phonon frequencies. Our study paves the way for applications of graphene in plasmonic waveguides, modulators and detectors in an unprecedentedly broad wavelength range from sub-terahertz to mid-infrared.

Current transport in metal/hafnium oxide/silicon structure

Based on the experimental results of the temperature dependence of gate leakage current and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling characteristics at 77 K, we have extracted the energy band diagrams and current transport mechanisms for metal/HfO/sub 2//Si structures. In particular, we have obtained the following quantities that will be useful for modeling and simulation: i) HfO/sub 2//Si conduction band offset (or barrier height): 1.13 /spl plusmn/ 0.13 eV; ii) Pt/HfO/sub 2/ barrier height: /spl sim/ 2.48 eV; iii) Al/HfO/sub 2/ barrier height: /spl sim/ 1.28 eV; iv) electron effective mass in HfO/sub 2/: 0.1 m/sub o/, where m/sub o/ is the free electron mass and v) a trap level at 1.5 /spl plusmn/ 0.1 eV below the HfO/sub 2/ conduction band which contributes to Frenkel-Poole conduction.

Carrier scattering, mobilities, and electrostatic potential in monolayer, bilayer, and trilayer graphene

The carrier density and temperature dependence of the Hall mobility in monolayer, bilayer, and trilayer graphene has been systematically studied. We found that as the carrier density increases, the mobility decreases for monolayer graphene, while it increases for bilayer/trilayer graphene. This can be explained by the different density of states in monolayer and bilayer/trilayer graphenes. In monolayer, the mobility also decreases with increasing temperature primarily due to substrate surface polar phonon scattering. In bilayer/trilayer graphene, on the other hand, the mobility increases with temperature because the electric field of the substrate surface polar phonons is effectively screened by the additional graphene layers and the mobility is dominated by Coulomb scattering. We also find that the temperature dependence of the Hall coefficient in monolayer, bilayer, and trilayer graphene can be explained by the formation of electron and hole puddles in graphene. This model also explains the temperature dependence of the minimum conductance of monolayer, bilayer, and trilayer graphene. The electrostatic potential variations across the different graphene samples are extracted.

State-of-the-Art Graphene High-Frequency Electronics

High-performance graphene transistors for radio frequency applications have received much attention and significant progress has been achieved. However, devices based on large-area synthetic graphene, which have direct technological relevance, are still typically outperformed by those based on mechanically exfoliated graphene. Here, we report devices with intrinsic cutoff frequency above 300 GHz, based on both wafer-scale CVD grown graphene and epitaxial graphene on SiC, thus surpassing previous records on any graphene material. We also demonstrate devices with optimized architecture exhibiting voltage and power gains reaching 20 dB and a wafer-scale integrated graphene amplifier circuit with voltage amplification.

Electronic transport and device prospects of monolayer molybdenum disulphide grown by chemical vapour deposition.

Layered transition metal dichalcogenides display a wide range of attractive physical and chemical properties and are potentially important for various device applications. Here we report the electronic transport and device properties of monolayer molybdenum disulphide grown by chemical vapour deposition. We show that these devices have the potential to suppress short channel effects and have high critical breakdown electric field. However, our study reveals that the electronic properties of these devices are at present severely limited by the presence of a significant amount of band tail trapping states. Through capacitance and ac conductance measurements, we systematically quantify the density-of-states and response time of these states. Because of the large amount of trapped charges, the measured effective mobility also leads to a large underestimation of the true band mobility and the potential of the material. Continual engineering efforts on improving the sample quality are needed for its potential applications.

Effect of Al inclusion in HfO 2 on the physical and electrical properties of the dielectrics

This authors present the effect of Al inclusion in HfO/sub 2/ on the crystallization temperature, leakage current, band gap, dielectric constant, and border traps. It has been found that the crystallization temperature is significantly increased by adding Al into the HfO/sub 2/ film. With an addition of 31.7% Al, the crystallization temperature is about 400-500/spl deg/C higher than that without Al. This additional Al also results an increase of the band gap of the dielectric from 5.8 eV for HfO/sub 2/ without Al to 6.5 eV for HfAlO with 45.5% Al and a reduced dielectric constant from 19.6 for HfO/sub 2/ without Al to 7.4 for Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ without Hf. Considering the tradeoff among the crystallization temperature, band gap, and dielectric constant, we have concluded that the optimum Al concentration is about 30% for conventional self-aligned CMOS gate processing technology.

Mobility measurement and degradation mechanisms of MOSFETs made with ultrathin high-k dielectrics

Accurate measurements and degradation mechanisms of the channel mobility for MOSFETs with HfO/sub 2/ as the gate dielectric have been systematically studied in this paper. The error in mobility extraction caused by a high density of interface traps for a MOSFET with high-k gate dielectric has been analyzed, and a new method to correct this error has been proposed. Other sources of error in mobility extraction, including channel resistance, gate leakage current, and contact resistance for a MOSFET with ultrathin high-k dielectric have also been investigated and reported in this paper. Based on the accurately measured channel mobility, we have analyzed the degradation mechanisms of channel mobility for a MOSFET with HfO/sub 2/ as the gate dielectric. The mobility degradation due to Coulomb scattering arising from interface trapped charges, and that due to remote soft optical phonon scattering are discussed.

Charge trapping in ultrathin hafnium oxide

The charge trapping properties of ultrathin HfO/sub 2/ in MOS capacitors during constant voltage stress have been investigated. The effects of stress voltage, substrate type, annealing temperature, and gate electrode are presented in this letter. It is shown that the generation of interface-trap density under constant-voltage stress is much more significant for samples with Pt gate electrodes than that with Al gates. The trapping-induced flatband shift in HfO/sub 2/ with Al gates increases monotonically with injection fluence for p-type Si substrates, while it shows a turnaround phenomenon for n-type Si substrates due to the shift of the charge centroid. The trapping-induced flatband shift is nearly independent of stress voltage for p-type substrates, while it increases dramatically with stress voltage for n-type Si substrates due to two competing mechanisms. The trap density can be reduced by increasing the annealing temperature from 500/spl deg/C to 600/spl deg/C. The typical trapping probability for JVD HfO/sub 2/ is similar to that for ALD HfO/sub 2/.

Photocurrent in graphene harnessed by tunable intrinsic plasmons

Graphenes optical properties in the infrared and terahertz can be tailored and enhanced by patterning graphene into periodic metamaterials with sub-wavelength feature sizes. Here we demonstrate polarization-sensitive and gate-tunable photodetection in graphene nanoribbon arrays. The long-lived hybrid plasmon-phonon modes utilized are coupled excitations of electron density oscillations and substrate (SiO2) surface polar phonons. Their excitation by s-polarization leads to an in-resonance photocurrent, an order of magnitude larger than the photocurrent observed for p-polarization, which excites electron-hole pairs. The plasmonic detectors exhibit photo-induced temperature increases up to four times as large as comparable two-dimensional graphene detectors. Moreover, the photocurrent sign becomes polarization sensitive in the narrowest nanoribbon arrays owing to differences in decay channels for photoexcited hybrid plasmon-phonons and electrons. Our work provides a path to light-sensitive and frequency-selective photodetectors based on graphenes plasmonic excitations.