Graphene ballistic nano-rectifier with very high responsivity.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27241162.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms11670 and PMC identifier 4895026.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Although graphene has the longest mean free path of carriers of any known electronic material, very few novel devices have been reported to harness this extraordinary property. Here we demonstrate a ballistic nano-rectifier fabricated by creating an asymmetric cross-junction in single-layer graphene sandwiched between boron nitride flakes. A mobility ∼200,000 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) is achieved at room temperature, well beyond that required for ballistic transport. This enables a voltage responsivity as high as 23,000 mV mW(-1) with a low-frequency input signal. Taking advantage of the output channels being orthogonal to the input terminals, the noise is found to be not strongly influenced by the input. Hence, the corresponding noise-equivalent power is as low as 0.64 pW Hz(-1/2). Such performance is even comparable to superconducting bolometers, which however need to operate at cryogenic temperatures. Furthermore, output oscillations are observed at low temperatures, the period of which agrees with the lateral size quantization.