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Terahertz (THz) plasma oscillations represent a potential path to implement ultrafast electronic devices and circuits. Here, we present an approach to generate on-chip THz signals that relies on plasma-wave stabilization in nanoscale transistors with specific structural asymmetry. A hydrodynamic treatment shows how the transistor asymmetry supports plasma-wave amplification, giving rise to pronounced negative differential conductance (NDC). A demonstration of these behaviors is provided in InGaAs high-mobility transistors, which exhibit NDC in accordance with their designed asymmetry. The NDC onsets once the drift velocity in the channel reaches a threshold value, triggering the initial plasma instability. We also show how this feature can be made to persist beyond room temperature (to at least 75 °C), when the gating is configured to facilitate a transition between the hydrodynamic and ballistic regimes (of electron-electron transport). Our findings represent a significant step forward for efforts to develop active components for THz electronics.

Owing to their practical applications, two-dimensional semiconductor p-n diodes have attracted enormous attention. Over the past decade, various methods, such as chemical doping, heterojunction structures, and metallization using metals with different work functions, have been reported for fabrication of such devices. In this study, a lateral p-n junction diode is formed in tungsten diselenide (WSe

To broaden the scope of van der Waals 2D magnets, we report the synthesis and magnetism of covalent 2D magnetic Cr$_2$Te$_3$ with a thickness down to one-unit-cell. The 2D Cr$_2$Te$_3$ crystals exhibit robust ferromagnetism with a Curie temperature of 180 K, a large perpendicular anisotropy of 7*105 J m-3, and a high coercivity of ~ 4.6 kG at 20 K. First-principles calculations further show a transition from canted to collinear ferromagnetism, a transition from perpendicular to in-plane anisotropy, and emergent half-metallic behavior in atomically-thin Cr$_2$Te$_3$, suggesting its potential application for injecting carriers with high spin polarization into spintronic devices.

The significant discrepancy observed between the predicted and experimental switching fields in correlated insulators under a DC electric field far-from-equilibrium necessitates a reevaluation of current microscopic understanding. Here we show that an electron avalanche can occur in the bulk limit of such insulators at arbitrarily small electric field by introducing a generic model of electrons coupled to an inelastic medium of phonons. The quantum avalanche arises by the generation of a ladder of in-gap states, created by a multi-phonon emission process. Hot-phonons in the avalanche trigger a premature and partial collapse of the correlated gap. The phonon spectrum dictates the existence of two-stage versus single-stage switching events which we associate with charge-density-wave and Mott resistive phase transitions, respectively. The behavior of electron and phonon temperatures, as well as the temperature dependence of the threshold fields, demonstrates how a crossover between the thermal and quantum switching scenarios emerges within a unified framework of the quantum avalanche.

The differential conductance of graphene is shown to exhibit a zero-bias anomaly at low temperatures, arising from a suppression of the quantum corrections due to weak localization and electron interactions. A simple rescaling of these data, free of any adjustable parameters, shows that this anomaly exhibits a universal, temperature- (T) independent form. According to this, the differential conductance is approximately constant at small voltages (V kBT/e), while at larger voltages it increases logarithmically with the applied bias. For theoretical insight into the origins of this behaviour, which is inconsistent with electron heating, we formulate a model for weak-localization in the presence of nonequilibrium transport. According to this model, the applied voltage causes unavoidable dispersion decoherence, which arises as diffusing electron partial waves, with a spread of energies defined by the value of the applied voltage, gradually decohere with one another as they diffuse through the system. The decoherence yields a universal scaling of the conductance as a function of eV/kBT, with a logarithmic variation for eV/kBT > 1, variations in accordance with the results of experiment. Our theoretical description of nonequilibrium transport in the presence of this source of decoherence exhibits strong similarities with the results of experiment, including the aforementioned rescaling of the conductance and its logarithmic variation as a function of the applied voltage.

In this study, an electrostatically induced quantum confinement structure, so-called quantum point contact, has been realized in a p-type trilayer tungsten diselenide-based van der Waals heterostructure with modified van der Waals contact method with degenerately doped transition metal dichalcogenide crystals. Clear quantized conductance and pinch-off state through the one-dimensional confinement were observed by dual-gating of split gate electrodes and top gate. Conductance plateaus were observed at a step of

We fabricated graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs) with hybrid organic/inorganic gate dielectrics, in which parylene C is used as the organic component. The HOMO–LUMO gap of parylene is large ...

We use transient electrical measurements to investigate the details of self-heating and charge trapping in graphene transistors encapsulated in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and operated under strongly nonequilibrium conditions. Relative to more standard devices fabricated on SiO2 substrates, encapsulation is shown to lead to an enhanced immunity to charge trapping, the influence of which is only apparent under the combined influence of strong gate and drain electric fields. Although the precise source of the trapping remains to be determined, one possibility is that the strong gate field may lower the barriers associated with native defects in the h-BN, allowing them to mediate the capture of energetic carriers from the graphene channel. Self-heating in these devices is identified through the observation of time-dependent variations of the current in graphene and is found to be described by a time constant consistent with expectations for nonequilibrium phonon conduction into the dielectric layers of the device. Overall, our results suggest that h-BN-encapsulated graphene devices provide an excellent system for implementations in which operation under strongly nonequilibrium conditions is desired.

In this study, the electrostatically induced quantum confinement structure, quantum point contact, has been realized in p-type trilayer tungsten diselenide-based van der Waals heterostructure with modified van der Waals contact method with degenerately doped transition metal dichalcogenide crystals. Clear quantized conductance and pinch-off state through the one-dimensional confinement were observed by dual-gating of split gate electrodes and top gate. Conductance plateaus were observed at step of 0.5 $\times$ 2e$^{2}$/h at zero and high magnetic field in addition to quarter plateaus at a finite bias voltage condition indicating the signature of spin-polarized quantum point contact realization., Paper:25 pages and 4 figures, SI: 13 pages and 10 figures, accepted for publication in Nano Letters

Mesoscopic conductance fluctuations are a ubiquitous signature of phase-coherent transport in small conductors, exhibiting universal character independent of system details. In this Letter, however, we demonstrate a pronounced breakdown of this universality, due to the interplay of local and remote phenomena in transport. Our experiments are performed in a graphene-based interaction-detection geometry, in which an artificial magnetic texture is induced in the graphene layer by covering a portion of it with a micromagnet. When probing conduction at some distance from this region, the strong influence of remote factors is manifested through the appearance of giant conductance fluctuations, with amplitude much larger than e^{2}/h. This violation of one of the fundamental tenets of mesoscopic physics dramatically demonstrates how local considerations can be overwhelmed by remote signatures in phase-coherent conductors.

Although semiconductor to metal phase transformation of MoTe

Drift velocity saturation (at some characteristic value, ${v}_{d}^{\mathrm{sat}}$) is a critical process that limits the ultimate current-carrying capacity of semiconductors at high electric fields $(\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{4}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{V}/\mathrm{cm})$ . With the recent emergence of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors, there is a need to understand the manner in which velocity saturation is impacted when materials are thinned to the monolayer scale. Efforts to determine ${v}_{d}^{\mathrm{sat}}$ are typically hampered, however, by self-heating effects that arise from undesirable energy loss from the active 2D layer to the dielectric substrate that supports it. In this work, we explore this problem for an important 2D semiconductor, namely monolayer molybdenum disulfide ($\mathrm{Mo}{\mathrm{S}}_{2}$). By applying a strategy of rapid (nanosecond duration), single-shot, pulsing, we are able to probe the true hot-carrier dynamics in this material, free of the influence of self-heating of its $\mathrm{Si}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ substrate. Our approach allows us to realize high current densities $(\ensuremath{\sim}\mathrm{mA}/\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m})$ in the $\mathrm{Mo}{\mathrm{S}}_{2}$ layers, representing a significant enhancement over prior studies. We similarly infer values for the saturated drift velocity $({v}_{d}^{sat\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}}\ensuremath{\sim}5\ensuremath{-}7\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{6}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{cm}{\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1})$ that are higher than those reported in earlier works, in which the influence of self-heating (and carrier injection into oxide traps) could not be excluded. In fact, our estimates for ${v}_{d}^{\mathrm{sat}}$ are somewhat close to the ideal velocity expected for normal (parabolic) semiconductors. Since a proper knowledge of this parameter is essential to the design of active electronic and optoelectronic devices, the insight into velocity saturation provided here should provide useful guidance for such efforts.

We explore the electrical characteristics of TiS3 nanowire field-effect transistor (FETs), over the wide temperature range from 3 to 350 K. These nanomaterials have a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) crystal structure and exhibit a gate-controlled metal-insulator transition (MIT) in their transfer curves. Their room-temperature mobility is ∼20-30 cm2/(V s), 2 orders of magnitude smaller than predicted previously, a result that we explain quantitatively in terms of the influence of polar-optical phonon scattering in these materials. In the insulating state (

In this work, we realized the requisite asymmetric boundary conditions across a plasmonic cavity, which is formed inside the gated region of a high electron mobility transistor (HEMT), to trigger the Dyakonov-Shur plasma wave instability.

We demonstrate an unusual manifestation of coherent scattering for electron waves in mesoscopic quantum point contacts, in which fast electron dynamics allows the phonon system to serve as a quasistatic source of disorder. The low-temperature conductance of these devices exhibits a giant ($\ensuremath{\gg}2{e}^{2}/h$) zero bias anomaly (ZBA), the features of which are reproduced in a nonequilibrium model for coherent scattering from the ``frozen'' phonon disorder. According to this model, the ZBA is understood to result from the in situ electrical manipulation of the phonon disorder, a mechanism that could open up a pathway to the on-demand control of coherent scattering in the solid state.

Here we describe some preliminary device results from field effect transistors made from metal trichalcogenides. Although not much investigated, is both promise and room for improvement. Improvements could come from better contacts and lower semiconductor channel defect densities, in metal trichalcogenides transistors. Devices with ohmic contacts have now been fabricated, and the surface termination of these materials modeled by density functional theory.

In this study, we fabricated quantum point contacts narrower than 100 nm by using an electrostatic potential to open the finite bandgap by applying a perpendicular electric field to bilayer graphene encapsulated between hexagonal boron nitride sheets. The conductance across the quantum point contact was quantized at a high perpendicular-displacement field as high as 1 V/nm at low temperature, and the quantization unit was 2e2/h instead of mixed spin and valley degeneracy of 4e2/h. This lifted degeneracy state in the quantum point contact indicates the presence of valley polarized state coming from potential profile or effective displacement field in one-dimensional channel.

Utilizing an innovative combination of scanning-probe and spectroscopic techniques, supported by first-principles calculations, we demonstrate how electron-beam exposure of field-effect transistors, implemented from ultrathin molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), may cause nanoscale structural modifications that in turn significantly modify the electrical operation of these devices. Quite surprisingly, these modifications are induced by even the relatively low electron doses used in conventional electron-beam lithography, which are found to induce compressive strain in the atomically thin MoS2. Likely arising from sulfur-vacancy formation in the exposed regions, the strain gives rise to a local widening of the MoS2 bandgap, an idea that is supported both by our experiment and by the results of first-principles calculations. A nanoscale potential barrier develops at the boundary between exposed and unexposed regions and may cause extrinsic variations in the resulting electrical characteristics exhibited by the tran...

We demonstrate a novel form of thermally-assisted hysteresis in the transfer curves of monolayer MoS2 FETs, characterized by the appearance of a large gate-voltage window and distinct current levels that differ by a factor of ∼102. The hysteresis emerges for temperatures in excess of 400 K and, from studies in which the gate-voltage sweep parameters are varied, appears to be related to charge injection into the SiO2 gate dielectric. The thermally-assisted memory is strongly suppressed in equivalent measurements performed on bilayer transistors, suggesting that weak screening in the monolayer system plays a vital role in generating its strongly sensitive response to the charge-injection process. By exploiting the full features of the hysteretic transfer curves, programmable memory operation is demonstrated. The essential principles demonstrated here point the way to a new class of thermally assisted memories based on atomically thin two-dimensional semiconductors.

Terahertz (THz)-band (0.1 THz to 10 THz) communication is envisioned as a key technology to meet the demand for faster, more ubiquitous wireless communication networks. For many years, the lack of compact, fast and efficient ways to generate, modulate, detect and demodulate THz-band signals has limited the feasibility of such communication systems. Recently, major progress within different device technologies is finally closing the so-called THz gap. For the time being, communication testbeds have been developed at sub-THz frequencies, i.e., at or near the boundary with millimeter-wave communication systems. Nonetheless, higher carrier frequencies and their associated bandwidth are needed to meet the demand for much higher data rates. In this paper, the TeraNova platform, i.e., the first integrated testbed for ultra-broadband wireless communications at true THz-band frequencies, is presented. The system consists of a transmitter and a receiver based on Schottky-diode frequency multiplying and mixing chains able to up & down-convert an information-bearing intermediate frequency (IF) signal up to 40 GHz-wide between 1 and 1.05 THz, i.e., the first absorption-defined transmission window above 1 THz. Guided by the experimental characterization of the THz channel in terms of path-loss and noise, tailored framing, time synchronization, channel estimation and single- and multi-carrier modulation techniques are implemented in software and realized by a state-of-the-art arbitrary waveform generator and a digital storage oscilloscope at the transmitter and the receiver, respectively. Experimental results are presented herein to highlight the opportunities and challenges to unleash the potential of the THz band.

Although semiconductor to metal phase transformation of MoTe$_{2}$ by high-density laser irradiation of more than 0.3 MW/cm$^{2}$ has been reported, we reveal that the laser-induced-metal (LIM) phase is not the 1T' structure derived by a polymorphic-structural phase transition but consists instead of semi-metallic Te induced by photo-thermal decomposition of MoTe$_{2}$. The technique is used to fabricate a field effect transistor with a Pd/2H-MoTe$_{2}$/LIM structure having an asymmetric metallic contact, and its contact properties are studied via scanning gate microscopy. We confirm that a Schottky barrier (a diffusion potential) is always formed at the Pd/2H-MoTe$_{2}$ boundary and obstacles a carrier transport while an Ohmic contact is realized at the 2H-MoTe$_{2}$/LIM phase junction for both n- and p-type carriers., Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Nanotechnology

We explore the electrical characteristics of TiS

A Verilog-A based model for the magneto-electric field effect transistor (MEFET) device is implemented and a variety of logic functions based on this device are proposed. These models are used to capture energy consumption and delay per switching event and to benchmark the MEFET with respect to CMOS. Single-source MEFET devices can be used for conventional logic gates like NAND, NOR, inverter and buffer and more complex circuits like the full adder. The dual source MEFET is an enhanced version of the MEFET device which functions like a spin multiplexer (spin-MUXer). Circuits using MEFETs require fewer components than CMOS to generate the same logic operation. These devices display a high on-off ratio., unlike many magneto-electric devices., and they operate at very low voltages., resulting in lower switching energy. Benchmarking results show that these devices perform better in terms of energy and delay., for implementing more complex functions., than the basic logic gates.

Theory and experiment demonstrate the direct growth of a graphene oxide/buckled graphene/graphene heterostructure on an incommensurate MgO(111) substrate. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, electron energy loss, Auger electron spectroscopy, low energy electron diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations all demonstrate that carbon molecular beam epitaxy on either a hydroxylated MgO(111) single crystal or a heavily twinned thin film surface at 850 K yields an initial C layer of highly ordered graphene oxide with C_(3v) symmetry. A 5 × 5 unit cell of carbon, with one missing atom, forms on a 4 × 4 unit cell of MgO, with the three C atoms surrounding the C vacancy surface forming covalent C–O bonds to substrate oxide sites. This leads to a bowed graphene-oxide with slightly modified D and G Raman lines and a calculated band gap of 0.36 eV. Continued C growth results in the second layer of graphene that is stacked AB with respect to the first layer and buckled conformably with the first layer while maintaining C_(3v) symmetry, lattice spacing and azimuthal orientation with the first layer. Carbon growth beyond the second layer yields graphene in azimuthal registry with the first two C layers, but with graphene-characteristic lattice spacing and π → π* loss feature. This 3rd layer is also p-type, as indicated by the 5.6 eV energy loss feature. The significant sp^3 character and C_(3v) symmetry of such heterostructures suggest that spin–orbit coupling is enabled, with implications for spintronics and other device applications.

In an attempt to optimize leakage characteristics of \ensuremath{\alpha}-$\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ thin films, its dielectric properties were investigated at local and macroscopic scale. The films were grown on Pd(111), Pt(111), and ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ (0001), supported on $\mathrm{A}{\mathrm{l}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ substrate. The local conductivity was measured by conductive atomic force microscopy mapping of $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ surfaces, which revealed the nature of defects that formed conducting paths with the bottom Pd or Pt layer. A strong correlation was found between these electrical defects and the grain boundaries revealed in the corresponding topographic scans. In comparison, the $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ film on ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ exhibited no leakage paths at similar tip bias value. Electrical resistance measurements through e-beam patterned top electrodes confirmed the resistivity mismatch between the films grown on different electrodes. The x-ray analysis attributes this difference to the twin free $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ growth on ${\mathrm{V}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ seeding.

Rapid (nanosecond-scale) electrical pulsing is used to study drift-velocity saturation in graphene field-effect devices. In these experiments, high-field pulses are utilized to drive graphene's carriers on time scales much faster than that on which energy loss to the underlying substrate can occur, thereby allowing the observation of the highest saturation velocities reported to date. In a dramatic departure from the behavior exhibited by conventional metals and semiconductors, as the electron or hole density is reduced toward the charge-neutrality point, the drift velocity is found to reach values comparable to the Fermi velocity itself. Corresponding current densities are as large as 10(9) A/cm(2), similar to the values reported for carbon nanotubes and for graphene-on-diamond transistors. In essence, our approach of rapid pulsing allows us to "free" graphene from the deleterious influence of its substrate, revealing a pathway to achieve the superior electrical performance promised by this material. The usefulness of this approach is not merely limited to graphene but should extend also to a broad variety of two-dimensional semiconductors.

Energy relaxation of hot carriers in graphene is studied theoretically and experimentally at low temperatures, where the loss rate may differ significantly from that predicted for electron---phonon interactions. We show here that plasmons, important in the relaxation of energetic carriers in bulk semiconductors, can also provide a pathway for energy relaxation in transport experiments in graphene. Reflecting the linear nature of graphene's bands, we obtain a total loss rate to plasmons that is independent of carrier density. This results in energy relaxation times whose dependence on temperature and density closely matches that reported experimentally.

We demonstrate dramatic breakdown behavior in the current through GaAs/AlGaAs nanoconstrictions (NCs), and find that this exhibits multiple signatures characteristic of the Gunn effect. These include current fluctuations and hysteresis, and electroluminescence that are consistent with the formation of Gunn domains. An analytical model is developed to describe the current–voltage characteristics of the NCs prior to the onset of the breakdown, and reveals the conduction through them to be barrier limited under low bias. A comparison of the results of these calculations with experiment furthermore suggests that the Gunn effect in these devices is triggered, once the phenomenon of drain-induced barrier lowering becomes sufficiently developed to support the injection of large numbers of electrons into the NC. Our paper, therefore, demonstrates how the Gunn effect may be manipulated through nanoscale tailoring of semiconductors, a result that may have implications for the development of solid-state terahertz technology.

The first spin transistor was proposed by Das and Datta in 1990 [1]. Since then, there has been a lot of active research on the spin based transistors in the academia and industry. The device structure resembles a CMOS transistor with the source and drain acting as a spin polarizer and spin detector respectively. The voltage applied across the gate controls the spin precession in the channel through electric field generated by spin orbit dependent Rashba effect. This results in magnitude change of the drain to source (IDS) current which represents the state variable of the device. Previously, Verilog-A based models have been proposed for the Rashba effect based SpinFET transistors [2-3]. Unfortunately, the Rashba effect is weak making it difficult for the realization of an effective room temperature Datta-Das transistor.