7 research outputs found
A Kinetic Pathway toward High-Density Ordered N Doping of Epitaxial Graphene on Cu(111) Using C<sub>5</sub>NCl<sub>5</sub> Precursors
Pristine graphene possesses high
electrical mobility, but its low
charge carrier density severely limits its technological significance.
Past efforts to increase graphene’s carrier density via chemical
doping have shown limited successes, accompanied by substantial reductions
in the mobility caused by disordered dopants. Here, based on first-principles
calculations, we propose to grow graphene on Cu(111) via self-assembly
of C<sub>5</sub>NCl<sub>5</sub> molecular precursors to achieve high-density
(1/6) and highly ordered nitrogen doping. Such a process relies on
the elegant concerted roles played by the London dispersion, chemical,
and screened Coulomb repulsive forces in enhancing molecular adsorption,
facilitating easy dechlorination, and dictating the overall orientation
of the C<sub>5</sub>N radicals, respectively. Further growth from
the orientationally correlated graphene islands is accompanied by
significantly minimized density of grain boundaries as the grains
coalesce to form larger N-doped graphene sheets, which are further
shown to possess superb electronic properties for future device applications.
Initial kinetic processes involved in N-doped graphene growth using
C<sub>5</sub>NH<sub>5</sub> precursors are also investigated and contrasted
with that of C<sub>5</sub>NCl<sub>5</sub>
Symmetry-Dependent Plasmonic Properties of Three-Dimensional Hybrid Metallic Nanostructure Arrays
We demonstrate the successful fabrication of various
well-ordered
3D gold nanostructure arrays using nanosphere lithography method,
and further reveal the strong dependence of the optical responses
on their in-plane symmetry. For the concentrically stacked ring-cap
array, its optical absorption behavior is similar to that of a ring
array with the same dimension because they have the same in-plane
symmetry. However, for the nonconcentrically stacked hole-cap array,
the broken in-plane symmetry results in
the appearance of crescent-shaped nanogaps at the interfaces and thus
leads to a novel strong plasmon resonance mode. The finite-difference
time-domain simulation shows that charge mainly assembles to the sharp
edges of the nanogaps at the resonant wavelength and remarkable electric
field enhancement is achieved around the sharp edges. Furthermore,
the strongest resonance modes of the ring-cap array and hole-cap array
show large red shift as the nanostructure size increases. The presented
3D nanostructure arrays may offer a spectrum of applications in sensing
Graphene Thickness Control via Gas-Phase Dynamics in Chemical Vapor Deposition
Graphene has attracted intense research interest due
to its exotic
properties and potential applications. Chemical vapor deposition (CVD)
on Cu foils has shown great promises for macroscopic growth of high-quality
graphene. By delicate design and control of the CVD conditions, here
we demonstrate that a nonequilibrium steady state can be achieved
in the gas phase along the CVD tube, that is, the active species from
methane cracking increase in quantity, which results in a thickness
increase continually for graphene grown independently at different
positions downstream. In contrast, uniform monolayer graphene is achieved
everywhere if Cu foils are distributed simultaneously with equal distance
in the tube, which is attributed to the tremendous density shrink
of the active species in the gas phase due to the sink effect of the
Cu substrates. Our results suggest that the gas-phase reactions and
dynamics are critical for the CVD growth of graphene and further demonstrate
that the graphene thickness from the CVD growth can be fine-tuned
by controlling the gas-phase dynamics. A similar strategy is expected
to be feasible to control the growth of other nanostructures from
gas phases as well
Quantum Percolation and Magnetic Nanodroplet States in Electronically Phase-Separated Manganite Nanowires
One-dimensional (1D)
confinement has been revealed to effectively tune the properties of
materials in homogeneous states. The 1D physics can be further enriched
by electronic inhomogeneity, which unfortunately remains largely unknown.
Here we demonstrate the ultrahigh sensitivity to magnetic fluctuations
and the tunability of phase stability in the electronic transport
properties of self-assembled electronically phase-separated manganite
nanowires with extreme aspect ratio. The onset of magnetic nanodroplet
state, a precursor to the ferromagnetic metallic state, is unambiguously
revealed, which is attributed to the small lateral size of the nanowires
that is comparable to the droplet size. Moreover, the quasi-1D anisotropy
stabilizes thin insulating domains to form intrinsic tunneling junctions
in the low temperature range, which is robust even under magnetic
field up to 14 T and thus essentially modifies the classic 1D percolation
picture to stabilize a novel quantum percolation state. A new phase
diagram is therefore established for the manganite system under quasi-1D
confinement for the first time. Our findings offer new insight into
understanding and manipulating the colorful properties of the electronically
phase-separated systems via dimensionality engineering
Quantum Control of Graphene Plasmon Excitation and Propagation at Heaviside Potential Steps
Quantum
mechanical effects of single particles can affect the collective
plasmon behaviors substantially. In this work, the quantum control
of plasmon excitation and propagation in graphene is demonstrated
by adopting the variable quantum transmission of carriers at Heaviside
potential steps as a tuning knob. First, the plasmon reflection is
revealed to be tunable within a broad range by varying the ratio γ
between the carrier energy and potential height, which originates
from the quantum mechanical effect of carrier propagation at potential
steps. Moreover, the plasmon excitation by free-space photos can be
regulated from fully suppressed to fully launched in graphene potential
wells also through adjusting γ, which defines the degrees of
the carrier confinement in the potential wells. These discovered quantum
plasmon effects offer a unified quantum-mechanical solution toward
ultimate control of both plasmon launching and propagating, which
are indispensable processes in building plasmon circuitry
Optical Manipulation of Rashba Spin–Orbit Coupling at SrTiO<sub>3</sub>‑Based Oxide Interfaces
Spin–orbit
coupling (SOC) plays a crucial role for spintronics
applications. Here we present the first demonstration that the Rashba
SOC at the SrTiO<sub>3</sub>-based interfaces is highly tunable by
photoinduced charge doping, that is, optical gating. Such optical
manipulation is nonvolatile after the removal of the illumination
in contrast to conventional electrostatic gating and also erasable
via a warming–cooling cycle. Moreover, the SOC evolutions tuned
by illuminations with different wavelengths at various gate voltages
coincide with each other in different doping regions and collectively
form an upward-downward trend curve: In response to the increase of
conductivity, the SOC strength first increases and then decreases,
which can be attributed to the orbital hybridization of Ti 3<i>d</i> subbands. More strikingly, the optical manipulation is
effective enough to tune the interferences of Bloch wave functions
from constructive to destructive and therefore to realize a transition
from weak localization to weak antilocalization. The present findings
pave a way toward the exploration of photoinduced nontrivial quantum
states and the design of optically controlled spintronic devices
Interlayer Transition and Infrared Photodetection in Atomically Thin Type-II MoTe<sub>2</sub>/MoS<sub>2</sub> van der Waals Heterostructures
We demonstrate the type-II staggered
band alignment in MoTe<sub>2</sub>/MoS<sub>2</sub> van der Waals (vdW)
heterostructures and
an interlayer optical transition at ∼1.55 μm. The photoinduced
charge separation between the MoTe<sub>2</sub>/MoS<sub>2</sub> vdW
heterostructure is verified by Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM)
under illumination, density function theory (DFT) simulations and
photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Photoelectrical measurements
of MoTe<sub>2</sub>/MoS<sub>2</sub> vdW heterostructures show a distinct
photocurrent response in the infrared regime (1550 nm). The creation
of type-II vdW heterostructures with strong interlayer coupling could
improve our fundamental understanding of the essential physics behind
vdW heterostructures and help the design of next-generation infrared
optoelectronics