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WTe2, a low-symmetry transition metal dichalcogenide, has broad prospects in functional device applications due to its excellent physical properties. When WTe2 flake is integrated into practical device structures, its anisotropic thermal transport could be affected greatly by the substrate, which matters a lot to the energy efficiency and functional performance of the device. To investigate the effect of SiO2/Si substrate, we carried out a comparative Raman thermometry study on a 50 nm-thick supported WTe2 flake (with κzigzag = 62.17 W·m−1·K−1 and κarmchair = 32.93 W·m−1·K−1), and a suspended WTe2 flake of similar thickness (with κzigzag = 4.45 W·m−1·K−1, κarmchair = 4.10 W·m−1·K−1). The results show that the thermal anisotropy ratio of supported WTe2 flake (κzigzag/κarmchair ≈ 1.89) is about 1.7 times that of suspended WTe2 flake (κzigzag/κarmchair ≈ 1.09). Based on the low symmetry nature of the WTe2 structure, it is speculated that the factors contributing to thermal conductivity (mechanical properties and anisotropic low-frequency phonons) may have affected the thermal conductivity of WTe2 flake in an uneven manner when supported on a substrate. Our findings could contribute to the 2D anisotropy physics and thermal transport study of functional devices based on WTe2 and other low-symmetry materials, which helps solve the heat dissipation problem and optimize thermal/thermoelectric performance for practical electronic devices.

With the development of electronic technologies, electronic devices become smaller, while their power density increases dramatically. The resulting excessive heat requires excellent heat dissipation to ensure great performance of the devices. A good thermal interface material (TIM), with excellent bulk thermal conductivity and proper elastic modulus, which can fill the gap between contact surfaces, is of great importance to improve overall performance of thermal management in the electronic devices. Carbon-based materials, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene (Gr), have attracted great attentions, due to their intrinsic high thermal conductivity. In this paper, carbon-based TIMs are reviewed, as well as the thermal conducting mechanisms and techniques to measure thermal properties for materials. The unique three-dimensional network of 3D-Gr provides not only high thermal conductivity, but also excellent mechanical properties, which makes it more competitive as TIM than CNTs and Gr. Furthermore, there is currently no universal characterization techniques, which are suitable to measure thermal properties of all TIMs. Hence, special attention must be paid to select a proper technique based on the measuring principle, in order to obtain accurate results. An outlook of the future challenges of the thermal interface materials is proposed at the end of the paper.

Graphene photodetectors are highly attractive owing to its ultra-fast and wide-range spectral response from visible to infrared benefit from the superior carrier mobility and the linear dispersion with zero bandgap of graphene. The application of graphene photodetectors however is seriously limited by the low intrinsic responsivity in the order of ∼10 mA/W. Here, we demonstrate photogating field-effect transistors based on pure monolayer graphene with simple device structures. The light absorption in the heavily n-doped silicon/silicon oxide (Si/SiO2) substrate generates an additional photovoltage that effectively modulates the conductance of graphene, leading to room temperature graphene photodetectors with high responsivity of ∼500 A/W for 450 nm light and ∼4 A/W for 1064 nm light, respectively. The generated photocurrent changes with applied gate voltage and shows a strongly nonlinear power dependence. Meanwhile, the photoresponse of graphene exhibits a cut-off wavelength of ∼1100 nm, confirming the dominance photogating effect caused by light absorption in Si/SiO2 substrate. Considering the great compatibility of graphene to Si technology, our result paves a way for high-performance chip-integrated photodetectors.

The influence of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) on graphene was studied by Raman spectroscopy. It was found that the contact of GNPs could induce the whole Raman spectrum of graphene to redshift. And the shift of the 2D peak is more obvious than that of the G peak. A model of local strain was brought forward to explain the shift of Raman spectrum, which comes from the charges transfer between the GNPs and graphene. The observation of the Raman shifts helps us to gain more physical insights into the graphene-related systems.

Graphene/4H-SiC/graphene photodetectors, as well as graphene/4H-SiC heterojunctions, have been fabricated and characterized by utilizing a heating decomposition method. High-quality graphene has been grown on an n− doped 4H-SiC substrate along with a 900 °C hydrogenation process. Temperature-dependent current–voltage characteristics of the graphene/4H-SiC heterojunction have been measured to obtain the Schottky barrier height. The bias-dependent Schottky barrier height (varying from 0.43 eV to 0.41 eV) was found and could result mainly from the electrical doping and Fermi level shifting in graphene. With the increase in the bias, the unsaturated dark current of graphene/4H-SiC/graphene photodetectors indicated the electron diffusion at the graphene/4H-SiC heterojunction. The increased responsivity peaks come from the absorption of the graphene layer in the UV range and the long lifetime of photo-induced thermal electronic carriers being contributed to the bandgap shrinking of graphene and reduction of the Schottky barrier height. The photodetectors biased at 6 V showed a responsivity of 40 A/W, an external quantum efficiency of 1.38 × 104%, and a detectivity of 9 × 1011 Jones, which are larger than those of previously reported similar devices based on graphene/SiO2 or graphene/SiC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasmon was probed from graphene which was grown by chemical vapor deposition using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy at room temperature. Graphene was laid on a resonant cavity, and metal grating was then deposited on top of them. For the THz light polarized along the grid fingers, the optical conductivity of graphene changed from Drude response into strongly Lorentz behavior with a peak formed in the THz-region. These experimental results are highly consistent with the theoretical prediction of a single layer graphene. It confirms that the graphene plasmon frequency can be tuned by the length of grating. Moreover, the extinction in the transmission of single-layer graphene can also be increased beyond 60%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metal-oxide-graphene heterostructures have abundant physical connotations. As one of the most important physical properties, the electric transport property of the gold-chromium oxide-gra-phene heterostructure has been studied. The experimental measurement shows that the conductive mechanism is dominated by the space-charge-limited transport, a kind of bulk transport of an insulator with charge traps. Combining the theoretical analysis, some key parameters such as the carrier mobility and trap energy also are obtained. The study of the characteristics of the metal-oxide-graphene heterostructures is helpful to investigate the graphene-based electronic and photoelectric devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simply and reproducible way is proposed to significantly suppress the nucleation density of graphene on the copper foil during the chemical vapor deposition process. By inserting a copper foil into a tube with one close end, the nucleation density on the copper foils can be reduced by more than five orders of magnitude and an ultra-low nucleation density of ∼10 nucleus/cm2 has been achieved. The structural analyses demonstrate that single crystal monolayer graphene with a lateral size of 1.9 mmcan be grown on the copper foils under the optimized growth condition. The electrical transport studies show that the mobility of such single crystal graphene is around 2400 cm2/Vs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metal/graphene contacts play a very important role in the performance of graphene-based devices. We report here a unique observation of current-induced doping in graphene transistors. The charge carrier type and the concentration in graphene can be manipulated by the current flowing through the graphene device, arising from the asymmetrical metal/graphene barriers between the source and drain electrodes and the accompanied current crowding effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, novel β-C3N4/CuO composites with superior photocatalytic activity are successfully fabricated via a facile reflux method followed by a thermal process. The morphologies, particle size and microstructure of the synthesized β-C3N4/CuO composites largely depended upon copper chloride and the volume ratio of Vwater:Vethanol in the mixed precursors. The fabricated β-C3N4/CuO nanoflakes exhibited obviously enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) with an  ∼3.4 and 1.9 fold increase in efficiency over that of pure g-C3N4 and commercial P25, respectively. The β-C3N4/CuO composite photocatalyst also showed photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methyl orange (MO). Moreover, the β-C3N4/CuO nanoflakes showed almost no loss of photocatalytic activity after three recycles of the degradation of the MB. A multiple synergetic mechanism in β-C3N4/CuO nanoflakes, which is featured by the highly reactive {0 0 2} facets, exposed many active sites of nanoflakes and the efficient charge separation are proposed to account for the distinguished photocatalytic activity. This work provides a facile and cost-effective strategy for designing novel β-C3N4/CuO photocatalysts for application in environmental purification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homogeneous diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were deposited on Si supports by a pulsed filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition system. Using DLC films masked by Ni nanoparticles as precursors, highly aligned diamond-like carbon nanorod (DLCNR) arrays were fabricated by the etching of inductively coupled radio frequency oxygen plasma. The as-prepared DLCNR arrays exhibit excellent field emission properties with a low turn-on field of 2.005 V μm−1 and a threshold field of 4.312 V μm−1, respectively. Raman spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were employed to determine the chemical bonding structural change of DLC films before and after etching. It is confirmed that DLC films have good connection with Si supports via the formation of the SiC phase, and larger conductive sp2 domains are formed in the as-etched DLC films, which play essential roles in the enhanced field emission properties for DLCNR arrays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focused ion-beam-induced deposition (FIBID) and focused electron-beam-induced deposition (FEBID) are convenient and useful in nanodevice fabrication. Since the deposition is from the organometallic platinum precursor, the conductive lines directly written by focused ion-beam (FIB) and focused electron-beam (FEB) are carbon-rich materials. We discuss an alternative approach to enhancing the platinum content and improving the conductivity of the conductive leads produced by FIBID and FEBID, namely an annealing treatment. Annealing in pure oxygen at 500 °C for 30 min enhances the platinum content values from ∼18% to 30% and ∼ 50% to 90% of FIBID and FEBID, respectively. Moreover, we find that thin films will be formed in the FIBID and FEBID processes. The annealing treatment is helpful to avoid the current leakage caused by these thin films. A single electron transistor is fabricated by FEBID and the current—voltage curve shows the Coulomb blockade effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a one-atomic-layer carbon material with the symmetrical conduction and valence bands, graphene shows a lot of interesting effects under high electric field. Here, we report an observation of self-amplification effect of current in graphene transistors in high-field transport. The current in graphene transistors could increase with time and finally reaches up to the breakdown threshold of graphene, even under the fixed bias and zero gate voltages. The current self-amplification is accompanied by the enhancement of the graphene p-doping, which demonstrates that this effect arises from the electrons escaping from graphene due to joule heating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]