Search

Wood has a long history as a traditional material which has been widely recognized to be hardly conductive electrically and thermally. Making wood conductive electrically and thermally is technically a new challenge to think outside the box. Here, we demonstrate that wood can be electrically and thermally conductive by dipping wood in the solution where multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) is dispersed evenly. Our idea is based on the fact that wood usually absorbs water or moisture due to its hygroscopic properties. When walnut wood was dipped in the MWCNT solution, the wood started to absorb water containing MWCNT. As a result, well-networked MWCNTs were homogeneously formed in the structure of wood with natural porosity. Interestingly, superior electrical and thermal conductivity were observed along the cellulose fiber direction of the walnut wood, compared with the tangential direction perpendicular to the fiber. We found that wood has electrically and thermally anisotropic characteristics due to the grain boundary by wood fibers. Furthermore, the degree of conductivity was controllable by varying dipping times. We think that this discovery will open a new avenue to utilize wood as a nanocomposite material having electrical and thermal properties.

Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) is generally used as a networked structure in the fabrication of a field-effect transistor (FET) since it is known that one-third of SWCNT is electrically metallic and the remains are semiconducting. In this case, the presence of metallic paths by metallic SWCNT (m-SWCNT) becomes a significant technical barrier which hinders the networks from achieving a semiconducting behavior, resulting in a low on/off ratio. Here, we report on an easy method of controlling the on/off ratio of a FET where semiconducting SWCNT (s-SWCNT) and m-SWCNT constitute networks between source and drain electrodes. A FET with SWCNT networks was simply sonicated under water to control the on/off ratio and network density. As a result, the FET having an almost metallic behavior due to the metallic paths by m-SWCNT exhibited a p-type semiconducting behavior. The on/off ratio ranged from 1 to 9.0 × 104 along sonication time. In addition, theoretical calculations based on Monte-Carlo method and circuit simulation were performed to understand and explain the phenomenon of a change in the on/off ratio and network density by sonication. On the basis of experimental and theoretical results, we found that metallic paths contributed to a high off-state current which leads to a low on/off ratio and that sonication formed sparse SWCNT networks where metallic paths of m-SWCNT were removed, resulting in a high on/off ratio. This method can open a chance to save the device which has been considered as a failed one due to a metallic behavior by a high network density leading to a low on/off ratio.

The balance of electron–hole charge carriers in quantum dot (QD) light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) is an important factor to achieve high efficiency. However, poor interfacial properties between QDs and their adjacent layers are likely to deteriorate the electron–hole charge balance, resulting in the poor performance of a QLED. In this paper, we report an enhanced efficiency in red-emitting inverted QLEDs by modifying the interface properties between QDs and ZnO electron transport layer (ETL) using a thin layer of non-conjugated polymer, poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PVPy). Based on the precise control of the electrical properties with PVPy, the maximum efficiency of the QLED is enhanced by 30% compared to the device without a PVPy layer. In particular, the efficiency at low current density region is significantly increased. We investigate the effect of the PVPy interlayer on the performance of QLEDs and find that this thin layer not only shifts the energy levels of the underlying ZnO ETL, but also effectively blocks the leakage current at the ETL/QD interface.

Black phosphorus (BP) has been proposed as a future optoelectronic material owing to its direct bandgap with excellent electrical performances. However, oxygen (O 2 ) and water (H 2 O) molecules in an ambient condition can create undesired bubbles on the surface of the BP, resulting in hampering its excellent intrinsic properties. Here, we report the electrical degradation pattern of a mechanically exfoliated BP field–effect transistor (FET) in terms of the channel and contact, separately. Various electrical parameters such as the threshold voltage ( V TH ), carrier mobility ( μ ), contact resistance ( R CT ) and channel resistance ( R CH ) are estimated by the Y function method ( YFM ) with respect to time (up to 2000 min). It is found that R CT reduces and then, increases with time; whereas, the behavior of R CH is vice versa in ambient conditions. We attribute these effects to oxygen doping at the contact and the surface oxidation effects on the surface of the BP, respectively.

Hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) is a ceramic compound which is thermally stable up to 1000 °C in air. Due to this, it is a very challenging task to etch h-BN under air atmosphere at low temperature. In this study, we report that h-BN flakes can be easily etched by oxidation at 350 °C under air atmosphere in the presence of transition metal (TM) oxide. After selecting Co, Cu, and Zn elements as TM precursors, we simply oxidized h-BN sheets impregnated with the TM precursors at 350 °C in air. As a result, microscopic analysis revealed that an etched structure was created on the surface of h-BN flakes regardless of catalyst type. And, X-ray diffraction patterns indicated that the air oxidation led to the formation of Co 3 O 4 , CuO, and ZnO from each precursor. Thermogravimetric analysis showed a gradual weight loss in the temperature range where the weight of h-BN flakes increased by air oxidation. As a result of etching, pore volume and pore area of h-BN flakes were increased after catalytic oxidation in all cases. In addition, the surface of h-BN flakes became highly active when the h-BN samples were etched by Co 3 O 4 and CuO catalysts. Based on these results, we report that h-BN flakes can be easily oxidized in the presence of a catalyst, resulting in an etched structure in the layered structure.

Boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) are ceramic compounds which are hardly oxidized below 1000 °C due to their superior thermal stability. Also, they are electrically almost insulators with a large band gap of 5 eV. Thus, it is a challenging task to etch BNNTs at low temperature and to convert their electrical properties to a conductive behavior. In this study, we demonstrate that BNNTs can be easily etched at low temperature by catalytic oxidation, resulting in an electrically conductive behavior. For this, multi-walled BNNTs (MWBNNTs) impregnated with Co precursor (Co(NO3)2·6H2O) were simply heated at 350 °C under air atmosphere. As a result, diverse shapes of etched structures such as pits and thinned walls were created on the surface of MWBNNTs without losing the tubular structure. The original crystallinity was still kept in the etched MWBNNTs in spite of oxidation. In the electrical measurement, MWBNNTs with a large band gap were converted to electrical conductors after etching by catalytic oxidation. Theoretical calculations indicated that a new energy state in the gap and a Fermi level shift contributed to MWBNNTs being conductive.

Chemical doping has been investigated as an alternative method of conventional ion implantation for two-dimensional materials. We herein report chemically doped multilayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) field effect transistors (FETs) through n-type channel doping, wherein triethanolamine (TEOA) is used as an n-type dopant. As a result of the TEOA doping process, the electrical performances of multilayer MoS2 FETs were enhanced at room temperature. Extracted field effect mobility was estimated to be ∼30 cm2 V−1 s−1 after the surface doping process, which is 10 times higher than that of the pristine device. Subthreshold swing and contact resistance were also improved after the TEOA doping process. The enhancement of the subthreshold swing was demonstrated by using an independent FET model. Furthermore, we found that the doping level can be effectively controlled by the heat treatment method. These results demonstrate a promising material system that is easily controlled with high performance, while elucidating the underlying mechanism of improved electrical properties by the doping effect in a multilayered scheme.

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.

Irradiation of MoS2 field-effect transistors (FETs) fabricated on Si/SiO2 substrates with electron beams (e-beams) below 30 keV creates electron–hole pairs (EHP) in the SiO2, which increase the interface trap density (Nit ) and change the current path in the channel, resulting in performance changes. In situ measurements of the electrical characteristics of the FET performed using a nano-probe system mounted inside a scanning electron microscope show that e-beam irradiation enables both multilayer and monolayer MoS2 channels act as conductors. The e-beams mostly penetrate the channel owing to their large kinetic energy, while the EHPs formed in the SiO2 layer can contribute to the conductance by flowing into the MoS2 channel or inducing the gate bias effect. The analysis of the device parameters in the initial state and the vent-evacuation state after e-beam irradiation can clarify the effect of the interplay between the e-beam-induced EHPs and ambient adsorbates on the carrier behavior, which depends on the thickness of the MoS2 layer. DC and low frequency noise analysis reveals that the e-beam-induced EHPs increase Nit from 109–1010 to 1011 cm-2⋅eV-1 in both monolayer and multilayer devices, while the interfacial Coulomb scattering parameter αSC increases by three times in the monolayer and decreases to one-tenth of its original value in the multilayer. In other words, an MoS2 layer with a thickness of ~30 nm is less sensitive to adsorbates by surface screening. Thus, the carrier mobility in the monolayer device decreases from 45.7 to 40 cm2V-1s-1, while in the 30 nm-thick multilayer device, it increases from 4.9 to 5.6 cm2V-1s-1. This is further evidenced by simulations of the distribution of interface traps and channel carriers in the MoS2 FET before and after e-beam irradiation, demonstrating that Coulomb scattering decreases as the effective channel moves away from the interface.

International audience; The thermoelectric power (TEP) of single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) thin films in pure metallic SWCNT (m-SWCNT) and pure semiconducting SWCNT (s-SWCNT) networks as well as in m- and s-SWCNT mixtures is investigated. The TEP measured on the pure s-SWCNT film (≈88 μV/K) was found to be almost 7 times higher than that of the m-SWCNTs (≈13 μV/K). Moreover, a quasilinear increase of TEP of the mixed SWCNT networks was observed as the fraction of s-SWCNTs is increased. The experimentally determined relationship between TEP and the fraction of s-SWCNTs in the mixture allows fast and simple quantitative analysis of the s:m ratio in any as-prepared heterogeneous SWCNT network. Furthermore, a semiempirical model analyzing the effect of the intertube junctions is proposed and applied to describe the thermoelectric behavior of the prepared SWCNT networks. The results of calculations match well with the experimental data and clearly demonstrate that the measured TEP of thin SWCNT films is principally controlled by the intertube junctions. The fundamental role of junctions in generating thermoelectric power is not limited to only SWCNT networks as discovered here, but also could be applied to systems where nanoparticles/nanotube form percolating paths in thin films and composite materials.

In this work, an easy method to etch monolayer graphene is shown by catalytic oxidation in the presence of ZnO nanoparticles (NPs). The catalytic etching of monolayer graphene, which was transferred to the channel of field-effect transistors (FETs), was performed at low temperature by heating the FETs several times under an inert gas atmosphere (ZnO + C → Zn + CO or CO2). As the etching process proceeded, diverse etched structures in the shape of nano-channels and pits were observed under microscopic observation. To confirm the evolution of etching, current–voltage characteristics of monolayer graphene were measured after every step of etching by catalytic oxidation. As a result, the conductance of monolayer graphene decreased with the development of etched structures. This decrease in conductance was analyzed by percolation theory in a honeycomb structure. Finally, well-patterned graphene was obtained by oxidizing graphene under air in the presence of NPs, where Al was deposited on graphene as a mask for designed patterns. This method can substitute graphene etching via carbon hydrogenation using H2 at high temperature.

Doping effects in devices based on two-dimensional (2D) materials have been widely studied. However, detailed analysis and the mechanism of the doping effect caused by encapsulation layers has not been sufficiently explored. In this work, we present experimental studies on the n-doping effect in WSe2 field effect transistors (FETs) with a high-k encapsulation layer (Al2O3) grown by atomic layer deposition. In addition, we demonstrate the mechanism and origin of the doping effect. After encapsulation of the Al2O3 layer, the threshold voltage of the WSe2 FET negatively shifted with the increase of the on-current. The capacitance-voltage measurements of the metal insulator semiconductor (MIS) structure proved the presence of the positive fixed charges within the Al2O3 layer. The flat-band voltage of the MIS structure of Au/Al2O3/SiO2/Si was shifted toward the negative direction on account of the positive fixed charges in the Al2O3 layer. Our results clearly revealed that the fixed charges in the Al2O3 encapsulation layer modulated the Fermi energy level via the field effect. Moreover, these results possibly provide fundamental ideas and guidelines to design 2D materials FETs with high-performance and reliability.

Modulation of electrical properties in MoS2 flakes is an attractive issue from the point of view of device applications. In this work, we demonstrate that an ambipolar behavior in MoS2 field effect transistors (FETs) can be easily obtained by heating MoS2 flakes under air atmosphere in the presence of cobalt oxide catalyst (MoS2 + O2 → MoOx + SOx). The catalytic oxidation of MoS2 flakes between source-drain electrodes resulted in lots of MoOx nanoparticles (NPs) on MoS2 flakes with thickness reduction from 64 nm to 17 nm. Consequently, N-type behavior of MoS2 FETs was converted into ambipolar transport characteristics by MoOx NPs which inject hole carriers to MoS2 flakes.

International audience; We report an investigation of the effects of low-temperature annealing on the electrical properties of amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to characterize the charge carrier concentration, which is related to the density of oxygen vacancies. The field-effect mobility was found to decrease as a function of the charge carrier concentration, owing to the presence of band-tail states. By employing the transmission line method, we show that the contact resistance did not significantly contribute to the changes in device performance after annealing. In addition, using low-frequency noise analyses, we found that the trap density decreased by a factor of 10 following annealing at 120 °C. The switching operation and on/off ratio of the a-IGZO TFTs improved considerably after low-temperature annealing.