Graphene, since its first isolation, carries many promises on its superior properties. However, unlike its conventional two-dimensional (2D) counterparts, e.g. Si and GaAs systems, graphene represents the first 2D systems built on an atomically thin structure. With every atoms on the surface, graphene is severely affected by the environment and the measured properties have not reaching its full potential.
Avoiding all possible external contamination sources is the key to keep graphene intact and to maintain its high quality electronic properties. To achieve this, it requires a revolution in the graphene device structure engineering, because all factors in a conventional process are scattering sources, i.e. substrate, solvent and polymer residues. With our recent two inventions, i.e. the van der Waals transfer method and the metal-graphene edge-contact, we managed to completely separate the layer assembly and metallization processes. Throughout the entire fabrication process, the graphene layer has never seen any external materials other than hexagonal boron nitride, a perfect substrate for graphene. Both optical and electrical characterizations show our device properties reach the theoretical limit, including low-temperature ballistic transport over distances longer than 20 micrometers, mobility larger than 1 million cm²/Vs at carrier density as high as 2 ×10^12 cm^-2, and room-temperature mobility comparable to the theoretical phonon-scattering limit. Moreover, for the first time, we demonstrate the post-fabrication cleaning treatments, annealing, is no longer necessary, which greatly eases integration with various substrate, such as CMOS wafers or flexible polymers, which can be damaged by excessive heating. Therefore the progress made in this work is extremely important in both fundamental physics and applications in high quality graphene electronic devices. Furthermore, our work also provides a new platform for the high quality heterostructures of the 2D material family.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:columbia.edu/oai:academiccommons.columbia.edu:10.7916/D8B27SG8 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Wang, Lei |
| Source Sets | Columbia University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Theses |
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