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Actively controlling the infrared emissivity of materials is critical for many applications, such as radiative cooling and thermal camouflage. Multilayer graphene (MLG) has shown great potential as a functional material with a tunable infrared emissivity. However, the spatial homogeneity in adjusting MLG's emissivity through ion intercalation is rather poor, which limits its practical applications. Here, we study how mixing various molecular components (e.g., ethanol) with ionic liquids affects the performance of MLG-based infrared emissivity modulators. The results indicate that introducing a moderate concentration of molecular components not only significantly improves spatial homogeneity in tuning emissivity but also enhances modulation depth, dynamic response, and the stability of the modulators. This is likely due to the increasing conductivity of the mixture and the improved wetting properties between the mixture and the separator, which leads to more effective charge transfer from ions in ionic liquids to carbons in graphene. The microscopic structure of MLG, revealed by Raman spectroscopy, confirms that the improvement in modulator performance is mostly due to homogeneous transportation of ions in the modulators. This not only sheds light on the underlying physics of the modulator but also greatly expands the options when selecting ionic liquids, thereby opening a new route for the modulator design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Semiconducting molybdenum ditelluride (2H‐MoTe2), a fast‐emerging 2D material with an appropriate band gap and decent carrier mobility, is configured as field‐effect transistors and is the focus of substantial research interest, showing hole‐dominated ambipolar characteristics. Here, carrier modulation of ambipolar few‐layer MoTe2 transistors is demonstrated utilizing magnesium oxide (MgO) surface charge transfer doping. By carefully adjusting the thickness of MgO film and the number of MoTe2 layers, the carrier polarity of MoTe2 transistors from p‐type to n‐type can be reversely controlled. The electron mobility of MoTe2 is significantly enhanced from 0.1 to 20 cm2 V−1 s−1 after 37 nm MgO film doping, indicating a greatly improved electron transport. The effective carrier modulation enables to achieve high‐performance complementary inverters with high DC gain of >25 and photodetectors based on few‐layer MoTe2 flakes. The results present an important advance toward the realization of electronic and optoelectronic devices based on 2D transition‐metal dichalcogenide semiconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]