Strain-induced conductance modulation in graphene grain boundary.

Grain boundaries (GBs) are ubiquitous in polycrystalline graphene materials obtained by various growth methods. It has been shown previously that considerable electrical transport gap can be opened by grain boundaries. On the other hand, polycrystalline graphene with GBs is an atomically thin membrane that can sustain extraordinary amount of strain. Here, by using atomistic quantum transport numerical simulations, we examine modulation of electrical transport properties of graphene GBs. The results indicate the modulation of transport gap and electrical conductance strongly depends on the topological structure of the GB. The transport gap of certain GBs can be significantly widened by strain, which is useful for improving the on-off ratio in potential transistor applications and for applications as monolayer strain sensors.

Modelling very large magnetoresistance of graphene nanoribbon devices.

We model a very large, tunable magnetoresistance (MR) in a graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistor, without artificial engineering of ferromagnetic contacts. A high MR of nearly 100% (about 50%) is obtained at low temperature (room temperature). We show that the MR ratio can be further tuned by using conventional electric field, in agreement with a recent experiment. The simulation results indicate that the large MR of GNRs stems from reduction of the bandgap of GNRs in the presence of applied magnetic field related to the 0(th) Landau level in graphene. Interestingly, in a more realistic device with edge roughness, the MR ratio is not degraded but rather enhanced, caused by the magnetic field induced spatial separation of the transport states. The large, tunable MR of GNRs resistant to edge roughness is attractive to device applications.

Observation of degenerate one-dimensional sub-bands in cylindrical InAs nanowires.

One-dimensional (1D) sub-bands in cylindrical InAs nanowires (NWs) are electrically mapped as a function of NW diameter in the range of 15-35 nm. At low temperatures, stepwise current increases with the gate voltage are clearly observed and attributed to the electron transport through individual 1D sub-bands. The 2-fold degeneracy in certain sub-band energies predicted by simulation due to structural symmetry is experimentally observed for the first time. The experimentally obtained sub-band energies match the simulated results, shedding light on both the energies of the sub-bands as well as the number of sub-bands populated per given gate voltage and diameter. This work serves to provide better insight into the electrical transport behavior of 1D semiconductors.

Quantum confinement effects in nanoscale-thickness InAs membranes.

Nanoscale size effects drastically alter the fundamental properties of semiconductors. Here, we investigate the dominant role of quantum confinement in the field-effect device properties of free-standing InAs nanomembranes with varied thicknesses of 5-50 nm. First, optical absorption studies are performed by transferring InAs "quantum membranes" (QMs) onto transparent substrates, from which the quantized sub-bands are directly visualized. These sub-bands determine the contact resistance of the system with the experimental values consistent with the expected number of quantum transport modes available for a given thickness. Finally, the effective electron mobility of InAs QMs is shown to exhibit anomalous field and thickness dependences that are in distinct contrast to the conventional MOSFET models, arising from the strong quantum confinement of carriers. The results provide an important advance toward establishing the fundamental device physics of two-dimensional semiconductors.

The effect of magnetic field and disorders on the electronic transport in graphene nanoribbons.

We developed a unified mesoscopic transport model for graphene nanoribbons, which combines the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism with the real-space π-orbital model. Based on this model, we probe the spatial distribution of electrons under a magnetic field, in order to obtain insights into the various signature Hall effects in disordered armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNR). In the presence of a uniform perpendicular magnetic field (B[Symbol: see text]-field), a perfect AGNR shows three distinct spatial current profiles at equilibrium, depending on its width. Under nonequilibrium conditions (i.e. in the presence of an applied bias), the net electron flow is restricted to the edges and occurs in opposite directions depending on whether the Fermi level lies within the valence or conduction band. For electrons at an energy level below the conduction window, the B[Symbol: see text]-field gives rise to local electron flux circulation, although the global flux is zero. Our study also reveals the suppression of electron backscattering as a result of the edge transport which is induced by the B[Symbol: see text]-field. This phenomenon can potentially mitigate the undesired effects of disorder, such as bulk and edge vacancies, on the transport properties of AGNR. Lastly, we show that the effect of [Formula: see text]-field on electronic transport is less significant in the multimode compared to the single-mode electron transport.