Surface Modulation of Graphene Field Effect Transistors on Periodic Trench Structure.

In this work, graphene field effect transistors (FETs) were fabricated on a trench structure made by carbonized poly(methylmethacrylate) to modify the graphene surface. The trench-structured devices showed different characteristics depending on the channel orientation and the pitch size of the trenches as well as channel area in the FETs. Periodic corrugations and barriers of suspended graphene on the trench structure were measured by atomic force microscopy and electrostatic force microscopy. Regular barriers of 160 mV were observed for the trench structure with graphene. To confirm the transfer mechanism in the FETs depending on the channel orientation, the ratio of experimental mobility (3.6-3.74) was extracted from the current-voltage characteristics using equivalent circuit simulation. It is shown that the number of barriers increases as the pitch size decreases because the number of corrugations increases from different trench pitches. The noise for the 140 nm pitch trench is 1 order of magnitude higher than that for the 200 nm pitch trench.

Modification of electrical properties of graphene by substrate-induced nanomodulation.

A periodically modulated graphene (PMG) generated by nanopatterned surfaces is reported to profoundly modify the intrinsic electronic properties of graphene. The temperature dependence of the sheet resistivity and gate response measurements clearly show a semiconductor-like behavior. Raman spectroscopy reveals significant shifts of the G and the 2D modes induced by the interaction with the underlying grid-like nanostructure. The influence of the periodic, alternating contact with the substrate surface was studied in terms of strain caused by bending of graphene and doping through chemical interactions with underlying substrate atoms. Electronic structure calculations performed on a model of PMG reveals that it is possible to tune a band gap within 0.14-0.19 eV by considering both the periodic mechanical bending and the surface coordination chemistry. Therefore, the PMG can be regarded as a further step toward band gap engineering of graphene devices.

Kohn anomaly and electron-phonon interaction at the K-derived point of the brillouin zone of metallic nanotubes.

We applied Raman spectroscopy to investigate the response to electrochemical doping of the second-order D* band in single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) bundles. Our study reveals a dramatic increase of the D* band sensitivity to doping upon moving the laser excitation to the red end of the visible spectrum and beyond. Using the double-resonance scattering model, we show that this phenomenon evidences a second Kohn anomaly in metallic SWNTs, located in the K-point-derived region of the Brillouin zone (BZ), which stems from the Kohn anomaly at the K-point of graphene. Our results will be compared to recent doping experiments on graphene with field-effect gating and can be used to investigate the wave-vector dependent electron-phonon coupling in the bulk of the BZ of metallic SWNTs.

High levels of electrochemical doping of carbon nanotubes: evidence for a transition from double-layer charging to intercalation and functionalization.

We studied the transition from the electrochemical double-layer charging regime to intercalative doping of bundled single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) in KCl and HCl aqueous solution. For this purpose we used high doping levels by applying constant potentials above 1000 mV approaching and slightly exceeding the oxidation potential for Cl(-) ions. At each potential in situ Raman measurements of the radial breathing mode (RBM), the high-energy tangential mode (HEM), and the disorder-induced (D) mode were performed. Furthermore, the conductivity and reflectivity of a set of SWNT samples were measured as a function of doping and subsequently the samples were examined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). From a comparative analysis of the results we conclude that above 1000 mV a significant penetration of chlorine species into the interstitial channels of the SWNT bundles and possible covalent functionalization take place.

Effect of SOCl2 treatment on electrical and mechanical properties of single-wall carbon nanotube networks.

Chemical modification by SOCl2 of an entangled network of purified single-wall carbon nanotubes, also known as 'bucky paper', is reported to profoundly change the electrical and mechanical properties of this system. Four-probe measurements indicate a conductivity increase by up to a factor of 5 at room temperature and an even more pronounced increase at lower temperatures. This chemical modification also improves the mechanical properties of SWNT networks. Whereas the pristine sample shows an overall semiconducting character, the modified material behaves as a metal. The effect of SOCl2 is studied in terms of chemical doping of the nanotube network. We identified the microscopic origin of these changes using SEM, XPS, NEXAFS, EDX, and Raman spectroscopy measurements and ab initio calculations. We interpret the SOCl2-induced conductivity increase by p-type doping of the pristine material. This conclusion is reached by electronic structure calculations, which indicate a Fermi level shift into the valence band, and is consistent with the temperature dependence of the thermopower.