Graphene Field-effect Transistors Research Articles

Study of graphene p-n junctions formed by the electrostatic modification of the SiO2 substrate.

We study the transport properties of mm-scale CVD graphene p-n junctions, which are formed in a single gated graphene field effect transistor configuration. Here, an electrical-stressing-voltage technique served to modify the electrostatic potential in the SiO2/Si substrate and create the p-n junction. We examine the transport characteristics about the Dirac points that are localized in the perturbed and unperturbed regions in the graphene channel and note the quantitative differences in the Hall effect between the perturbed and unperturbed regions. The results also show that the longitudinal resistance is highly sensitive to the external magnetic field when the Hall bar device operates as a p-n junction.

High mobility graphene field effect transistors on flexible EVA/PET foils

Monolayer graphene is a promising material for a wide range of applications, including sensors, optoelectronics, antennas, EMR shielding, flexible electronics, and conducting electrodes. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of carbon atoms on a metal catalyst is the most scalable and cost-efficient method for synthesizing high-quality, large-area monolayer graphene. The usual method of transferring the CVD graphene from the catalyst to a target substrate involves a polymer carrier which is dissolved after the transfer process is completed. Due to often unavoidable damage to graphene, as well as contamination and residues, carrier mobilities are typically 1000–3000 cm2(Vs)−1 , unless complex and elaborate measures are taken. Here, we report on a simple scalable fabrication method for flexible graphene field-effect transistors that eliminates the polymer interim carrier, by laminating the graphene directly onto office lamination foils, removing the catalyst, and depositing Parylene N as a gate dielectric and encapsulation layer. The fabricated transistors show field- and Hall-effect mobilities of 7000–10 000 cm2(Vs)−1 with a residual charge-carrier density of 2×1011 1 cm−2 at room temperature. We further validate the material quality by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and observation of the quantum Hall effect at low temperatures in a moderate magnetic field of ∼5 T. The Parylene encapsulation provides long-term stability and protection against additional lithography steps, enabling vertical device integration in multilayer electronics on a flexible platform.

Ultrasensitive Graphene Field-Effect Biosensors Based on Ferroelectric Polarization of Lithium Niobate for Breast Cancer Marker Detection.

Herein, we present a novel ultrasensitive graphene field-effect transistor (GFET) biosensor based on lithium niobate (LiNbO3) ferroelectric substrate for the application of breast cancer marker detection. The electrical properties of graphene are varied under the electrostatic field, which is generated through the spontaneous polarization of the ferroelectric substrate. It is demonstrated that the properties of interface between graphene and solution are also altered due to the interaction between the electrostatic field and ions. Compared with the graphene field-effect biosensor based on the conventional Si/SiO2 gate structure, our biosensor achieves a higher sensitivity to 64.7 mV/decade and shows a limit of detection down to 1.7 fM (equivalent to 12 fg·mL-1) on the detection of microRNA21 (a breast cancer marker). This innovative design combining GFETs with ferroelectric substrates holds great promise for developing an ultrahigh-sensitivity biosensing platform based on graphene that enables rapid and early disease diagnosis.

Heat Flow Overshooting in Suspended Graphene

ABSTRACT In this work we found that when the hydrodynamic heat conduction in suspended graphene is in the under-damped free oscillation regime the disturbance of heat flux at the boundaries of graphene and the joint action of the initial heat flux and its time change rate can cause the heat flow overshooting which refers to the excess heat flux established in the heat conduction medium when two heat flow wave-fronts meet. The overshooting can make the maximum amplitude of the heat flux more than twice that of the initial heat flux, which poses a great danger to the next high-frequency and high-efficiency electronic devices based on graphene, such as the graphene field-effect transistors. Interestingly, results show that when the scale ratio of graphene with rectangular shape in the heat flow direction to its vertical direction is greater than a certain value, the overshooting caused by the disturbance of the heat flux at the boundaries no longer occurs. For the overshooting induced by the uneven distribution of the initial heat flux and its time change rate, it is shown that if the length in the region with the higher heat flux and time change rate in the direction of heat flow is less than a critical value the overshooting phenomenon can be avoided. These findings provide a new way for thermal management of electronic devices based on graphene.

Electrically Oriented Antibodies on Transistor for Monitoring Several Copies of Methylated DNA.

An antibody transistor is a promising biosensing platform for the diagnosis and monitoring of various diseases. Nevertheless, the low concentration and short half-life of biomarkers require biodetection at the trace-molecule level, which remains a challenge for existing antibody transistors. Herein, we demonstrate a graphene field-effect transistor (gFET) with electrically oriented antibody probes (EOA-gFET) for monitoring several copies of methylated DNA. The electric field confines the orientation of antibody probes on graphene and diminishes the distance between graphene and methylated DNAs captured by antibodies, generating more induced charges on graphene and amplifying the electric signal. EOA-gFET realizes a limit of detection (LoD) of ∼0.12 copy μL-1, reaching the lowest LoD reported before. EOA-gFET shows a distinguishable signal for liver cancer clinical serum samples within ∼6 min, which proves its potential as a powerful tool for disease screening and diagnosis.

Dynamic characteristics of terahertz hot-electron graphene FET bolometers: Effect of electron cooling in channel and at side contacts

We analyze the operation of the hot-electron FET bolometers with the graphene channels (GCs) and the gate barrier layers. Such bolometers use the thermionic emission of the hot electrons heated by incident-modulated THz radiation. The hot electrons transfer from the GC into the metal gate. As the THz detectors, these bolometers can operate at room temperature. We show that the response and ultimate modulation frequency of the GC-FET bolometers are determined by the efficiency of the hot-electron energy transfer to the lattice and the GC side contacts due to the 2DEG lateral thermal conductance. The dependences of these mechanisms on the band structure and geometrical parameters open the way for the GC-FET bolometers optimization, in particular, for the enhancement of the maximum modulation frequency.

Deformed graphene FET biosensor on textured glass coupled with dielectrophoretic trapping for ultrasensitive detection of GFAP

Numerous efforts have been undertaken to mitigate the Debye screening effect of FET biosensors for achieving higher sensitivity. There are few reports that show sub-femtomolar detection of biomolecules by FET mechanisms but they either suffer from significant background noise or lack robust control. In this aspect, deformed/crumpled graphene has been recently deployed by other researchers for various biomolecule detection like DNA, COVID-19 spike proteins and immunity markers like IL-6 at sub-femtomolar levels. However, the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) approach for graphene fabrication suffers from various surface contamination while the transfer process induces structural defects. In this paper, an alternative fabrication methodology has been proposed where glass substrate has been initially texturized by wet chemical etching through the sacrificial layer of synthesized silver nanoparticles, obtained by annealing of thin silver films leading to solid state dewetting. Graphene has been subsequently deposited by thermal reduction technique from graphene oxide solution. The resulting deformed graphene structure exhibits higher sensor response towards glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) detection with respect to flat graphene owing to the combined effect of reduced Debye screening and higher surface area for receptor immobilization. Additionally, another interesting aspect of the reported work lies in the biomolecule capture by dielectrophoretic (DEP) transport on the crests of the convex surfaces of graphene in a coplanar gated topology structure which has resulted in 10 aM and 28 aM detection limits of GFAP in buffer and undiluted plasma respectively, within 15 min of application of analyte. The detection limit in buffer is almost four decades lower than that documented for GFAP using biosensors which is is expected to pave way for advancing graphene FET based sensors towards ultrasensitive point-of-care diagnosis of GFAP, a biomarker for traumatic brain injury.

Temperature Dependence of Hot-Electron Graphene Fet Bolometric Detectors Response to Modulated Terahertz Radiation

In this paper, we analyze the modulation characteristics and the ultimate modulation frequency of the terahertz (THz) hot-electron FET bolometers with the graphene channels (GCs), metal gate (MG), and gate barrier layers (BLs) in a wide temperature range. Our results predict that the responsivity of GC-FET bolometers decreases with decreasing operating temperature. This is attributed to a dramatic drop in the thermionic GC-MG current (characterized by the relatively large activation energy) and its modulated component when the temperature lowers. A further decrease in the temperature results in a fairly strong responsivity roll-off. In contrast, the responsivity of the GC-FET detectors with the temperature-adjusted load resistance rises with decreasing temperature because the temperature lowering leads to an increase in the electron energy relaxation time and promotes more effective heating by the impinging THz radiation. In this case, the weakening of the thermionic current is compensated by the commensurate increase in the load resistance.

Effect of fabrication process on contact resistance and channel in graphene field effect transistors

Contact resistance, as one of the main parameters that limits the performance of graphene-based transistors, is highly dependent on the metal-graphene contact fabrication processes. These processes are investigated and the corresponding resistances are measured based on the transfer length method (TLM). In fabrication processes, when annealing is done on chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown graphene samples that are transferred onto SiO2/Si substrates, the adhesion of graphene to the substrate is improved, and poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) residues are also reduced. When the metal deposition layer is first applied to the graphene, and then, the photolithography process is performed to define the electrodes and graphene sheet, the graphene-metal contact resistance is better than that in other methods due to the removal of photoresist residues. In fact, by changing the sequence of the fabrication process steps, the direct contact between photoresist and graphene surface can be prevented. Thus, the contact resistance is reduced and conductivity increases, and in this way, the performance of graphene transistor improves. The results show that the fabrication process has a noticeable effect on the transistor properties such as contact resistance, channel sheet resistance, and conductivity.‌ Here, by using the annealing process and changing the order of photolithography processes, a contact resistance of 470 Ω μm is obtained for Ni-graphene contact, which is relatively favorable.

A recurrence model capturing interface traps for non-zero bandgap GFETs towards dynamic mimicking of synaptic plasticity

This paper primarily focusses on developing an analytical model with a non-zero bandgap of boron (B)/nitrogen (N) substitution doped graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs) to mimic the synaptic behaviour. The trap charges at the channel and gate-insulator interface are utilized to induce the hysteresis conduction mechanism, which is further exploited to accomplish synaptic plasticity. The proposed recurrence, that is the time-dependent trap drain current model, accurately captures the physical insights of trap charges using an equivalent metal–insulator–graphene model. An interesting feature of the proposed model is that it is compatible with both the doped (B/N) and the undoped GFETs. The model is also investigated to generate the hysteresis characteristics of the GFET that are further utilized to simulate the synaptic behaviour. Another fact that must be noticed is the existence of complete OFF regions for doped B/N GFETs, unlike the undoped case, which manifest undesirable ambipolar behaviour. The synapse made up of B/N-doped GFETs predicts an optimistic learning and memory mechanism, termed as spike time-dependent plasticity (STDP). The STDP characteristics of B/N doped synaptic GFETs have been enhanced by more than 18 × compared to artificial synapses made of undoped GFETs. Hence, the hysteresis behaviour along with the non-zero bandgap of B/N substitution doped GFETs makes them highly favourable for the dynamic mimicking of synaptic plasticity to be efficiently biologically plausible.

Laser-induced graphene van der Waals contact-enabled high-performance 2D-materials-based field-effect transistor

Establishing robust electrical contact between electrodes and two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors has become an increasingly critical challenge in realizing high-performance 2D material-based devices. This study presents an easy-to-fabricate high-quality van der Waals (vdW) contact strategy, utilizing transferred laser-induced graphene (LIG), for monolayer graphene field-effect transistors (LIG-GFETs). LIG-graphene vdW contacts were formed via a simple transfer and alignment step without any high-temperature or vacuum processes. Excellent electrical properties of LIG-GFETs were achieved, with up to sevenfold enhanced carrier mobilities compared to conventional gold electrode-based GFETs. Experimental investigations and density functional theory simulations elucidated the mechanisms underlying this performance enhancement. Specifically, the superior performance of LIG-GFETs can be attributed to the formation of vdW contacts between the transferred LIG and the monolayer graphene, alongside the doping of the monolayer graphene induced by the O functional groups in the LIG. We also demonstrated that the high performance monolayer MoS2 FETs can be achieved with more than fivefold enhanced carrier mobilities by using LIG vdW contact compared to conventional gold electrode-based MoS2 FETs. This newly developed vdW contact strategy provides new insights into high-performance 2D material-based devices.

Sonification methods for enabling augmented data analysis applied to graphene optoelectronics

AbstractThis paper presents a simple method to transform two‐dimensional data sets into a format that can be easily processed into sound files. These files can be loaded into software wavetable synthesizers to create audible forms of data that can represent complex information. Some background about sonification will be discussed, and the simple method developed here will be applied to graphene optoelectronics. Some key illustrative examples will be used to demonstrate the method, including data sets from previous work on light emission from graphene field effect transistors. We use the sonification method to show how changes in observed phenomena (e.g., light emission intensity and spectral shape) result in changes of the resulting sound (such as the timbre). Demonstrations are included in video format to hear and illustrate the method and resulting effects.

On-site detection of infectious disease based on CaCO3-based magnetic micromotor integrated with graphene field effect transistor.

Anew detection platform based on CaCO3-based magnetic micromotor (CaCO3@Fe3O4) integrated with graphene field effect transistor (GFET) was construct and used for on-site SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pathogen detection. The CaCO3@Fe3O4 micromotor, which was modified with anti-SARS-CoV-2 (labelled antibody, AntiE1), can self-moved in the solution containing hydrochloric acid (HCl) and effective to capture the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pathogens. After magnetic field separation, the capture micromotor was detected by GFET, exhibiting a good linear relationship within the range of 1 ag/mL to 100ng/mL and low detection limit (0.39ag/mL). Furthermore, the detection platform wasalso successfully applied to detection of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pathogens in soil solution, indicating the potential use in on-site application.

Transfer-free robust n-type graphene field-effect transistors for digital logic electronic devices

Graphene has been hailed as wonder materials for electronics due to its outstanding charge transport properties. However, its lack of an electronic bandgap has hindered its application to large-scale field-effect transistor (FET) circuits, thereby making bandgap opening a key priority. Further, the fabrication of graphene devices to date conventionally requires the transfer of graphene from its growth substrate to a target substrate, which introduces defects and deteriorates the device performance. To overcome these challenges, we demonstrate a transfer-free approach for the low-temperature growth (∼100 °C) onto TiO2–x (∼10 nm) buffer layer and in-situ nitrogen doping of monolayer graphene, which enables stretchable nitrogen-doped graphene-based FETs with cutting-edge performance and stability. Hybridizing a TiO2–x channel with the nitrogen-doped graphene, nitrogen-doped graphene-based FETs could be achieved with an on-off ratio of ∼2 × 108 and an electron mobility of ∼1,500 cm2V−1s−1 for mainstream digital logic devices. Such devices exhibit high reproducibility and wafer-scale uniformity, thermal, bias-stress, long-term stability, and robust flexibility and stretchability. The scalability and versatility of this transfer-free approach for the flexible and stretchable FETs pave the way for high-performance nitrogen-doped graphene-based digital logic circuits.

Chemically doped-graphene FET photodetector enhancement via controlled carrier modulation with an iron(III)-chloride

Graphene is an excellent material among the family of 2D materials due to its electronic and optoelectronic properties. The intentional modification of its electronic structure via doping processes holds immense significance regarding tailoring its properties for specific applications. We comprehensively investigated p-type doping in few-layer graphene field-effect transistors (FETs) on SiO2/Si substrates by utilizing Iron(III)-chloride (FeCl3) dopant solutions with varying concentrations that range from 5 mM to 50 mM in this study. The successful doping was confirmed via a meticulous Raman spectroscopy analysis, which revealed notable shifts in the peak positions and peak broadening post-doping. Electrical measurements, which include transfer curves at a fixed biasing voltage, provided further confirmation, which demonstrates a distinctive shift in the Dirac point from −1 V to +25 V when the FeCl3 concentrations were changed from 5 mM to 50 mM. The impact of doping on the photoresponse of the graphene device was systematically explored. The device exhibited a significant increase in responsivity and external quantum efficiency following the p-type doping, which indicates an enhanced performance in photodetection. This research validates the successful p-type doping of graphene and underscores its implications regarding optimizing the electrical and optoelectronic properties of graphene-based devices, which confirms its potential for advanced applications for electronic and optoelectronic technologies.

A scalable top-gate graphene field effect transistor with a polydimethylsiloxane dielectric

The limitations of modern CMOS technology have created a call to action for novel devices with great scalability potential. Graphene has been recognized as a suitable material for an enhanced transistor channel based on its incredibly large conductivity while also being easily scaled. Previous research has noted the importance of a top gate device structure, which is difficult to accomplish for graphene transistors due to graphene's incompatibility with oxide growth processes. A novel process flow for graphene field effect transistors with scalability is presented. The emphasis is on the growth of multilayer graphene using chemical vapor deposition and the implementation of polydimethylsiloxane as a gate dielectric. Polydimethylsiloxane gate insulator thickness of 815 nm and 570 nm were successfully developed on 4in large-scale wafers. Two devices of similar channel dimensions and different dielectric were compared and mobilities of 14.57cm2V−1s−1 and 0.44 cm2V−1s−1 were measured. Gate voltage sweeps from -20 V to 20 V also demonstrated channel current modulation with a charge neutrality point between 5 V and 8 V, indicating achievement of expected device operation.

CRISPR-Enabled Graphene-Based Bio-Cyber Interface Model for In Vivo Monitoring of Non-Invasive Therapeutic Processes.

In this paper, we present a model of the bio-cyber interface for the Internet of Bio-Nano Things application. The proposed model is inspired by the gains of integrating the Clustered Regularly Interspace Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology with the Graphene-Field effect transistor (GFET). The capabilities of the integrated system are harnessed to detect nucleic acids transcribed by another component of the bio-cyber interface, a bioreporter, on being exposed to the signalling molecule of interest. The proposed model offers a label-free real-time signal transduction with multi-symbol signalling capability. We model the entire operation of the interface as a set of simultaneous differential equations representing the process's kinetics. The solution to the model is obtained using a numerical method. Numerical results show that the performance of the interface is influenced by parameters such as the concentrations of the input signalling molecules, the surface receptor on the bioreporter, and the CRISPR complex. The interface's performance also depends considerably on the elimination rate of the signalling molecules from the body. For multi-symbol molecular signalling, the rate of degradation of the transcribed RNAs influences the system's susceptibility to inter-symbol interference.

Drift suppression of solution-gated graphene field-effect transistors through electrolyte submersion

In solution-gated graphene FETs (SG-GFETs), cations in electrolyte solutions can intercalate between graphene and SiO2. Such permeation affects substrate-induced hole doping effects, resulting in drifts in the charge neutrality point (CNP) of SG-GFETs. In this study, we investigated the effect of submerging GFETs in electrolyte solutions on CNP values. The results revealed that the CNP decreased considerably from approximately 180 mV to nearly zero with the increase in the immersion period. The CNP drifts during electrical measurements were also suppressed by the prolonged submersion. These insights can be used for developing improved SG-GFETs.

Unveiling the mechanism behind the negative capacitance effect in Hf0.5Zr0.5O2-Based ferroelectric gate stacks and introducing a Circuit-Compatible hybrid compact model for Leakage-Aware NCFETs

This paper addresses the lack of understanding of the origin of negative capacitance (NC) effect in the hafnium zirconium oxide (HZO) ferroelectric (FE) gate stack and proposes a new circuit-compatible hybrid compact model for NC field-effect transistors (NCFETs). The model supports Landau and Preisach FE models, encompassing multiple FE domains, FE leakage, and FE damping. The proposed model is experimentally validated, and the intrinsic switching speed of HZO is predicted. It is revealed that the NC effect in HZO stems from a mismatch in free charge and polarization switching rates. Performance evaluation of the model reveals that HZO-NCFET achieves ∼1.18x and ∼9.17x higher amplification at low and high frequencies compared to its PZT-NCFET counterpart. Our study demonstrates the superior ON-current (2.74 mA/µm) of the Engineered Leaky-HZO NCFET, surpassing FinFET and Germanium-source L-shaped TFET by ∼7.89x and ∼4.81x, respectively. This study briefly examines the direct causes of the negative drain-induced barrier lowering effect and negative differential resistance effect in Landau NCFETs. Furthermore, we emphasize the crucial role of FE thickness in determining the magnitude of the NC effect, offering valuable insights for the design and optimization of NC-based devices and circuits. Analysis of the Miller effect in NCFET-based inverters demonstrates significant improvements owing to high ON-current and voltage amplification, making them suitable for high-speed NCFET-based circuitry. Landau and Preisach NCFET-based inverters exhibit (50.70%, 51.34%) lower overshoots and (28.45%, 28.61%) reduced propagation delay compared to the NC nanowire FET-based inverter. Moreover, NCFET-based 2:1 fork circuits significantly reduce (46.69%, 51.37%) critical clock skew compared to CMOS FET-based circuits, showcasing the potential of NCFET technology in addressing timing violations in random logic paths. Furthermore, the Landau and Preisach NCFET-based ring oscillators (ROs) achieve (39.97%, 49.38%) and (52.65%, 62.92%) higher oscillation frequencies (fOSC) compared to state-of-the-art graphene FET-RO and CMOS-RO, respectively. The 15-stage Leaky-HZO and Engineered Leaky-HZO NCFET-ROs outperform the double gate-FET-RO by ∼2.19x and ∼16.69x in terms of fOSC, highlighting their superior performance in frequency-domain metrics. These findings demonstrate the potential of NCFET-based digital and mixed-signal circuits for high-performance integrated circuit designs.

Terahertz Detection with Graphene FETs: Photothermoelectric and Resistive Self-Mixing Contributions to the Detector Response

Terahertz Detection with Graphene FETs: Photothermoelectric and Resistive Self-Mixing Contributions to the Detector Response