Two-Dimensional Low-Resistance Contacts For High Performance Wse2 And Mos2 Transistors

ABSTRACT TWO-DIMENSIONAL LOW-RESISTANCE CONTACTS FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE WSe2 and MoS2, TRANSISTORS by Hsun-jen Chuang May 2016 Advisor: Dr. Zhixian Zhou Major: Physics Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Two-dimensional layered materials beyond graphene such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have attracted a lot of interests due to their superior property in many aspects. In this work, I am focusing on two TMD materials: WSe2 and MoS2. The main objective this work is to develop novel approaches to fabricating low-resistance ohmic contacts to TMDs for low power, high performance electronic applications. First, we used graphene as electrical contacts for WSe2 field-effect transistor with superior performance, including a high ON/OFF ratio of \u3e107 at 170 K, large electron mobility of ~330 cm2V-1s-1 and he hole mobility of ~270 cm2V-1s-1 at 77 K, and low contact resistance of ~ 2kΩ µm. Second, we developed a novel 2D to 2D contacts strategy2 for a variety of TMDs by van der Waals assembly of substitutionally doped TMDs as drain/source contacts and TMDs with no intentional doping as channel materials. The high intrinsic behavior of the device is revealed, where it exhibits low contact resistances of ~0.3 kΩ µm, on/off ratios up to \u3e 109 as well as two-terminal field-effect hole mobility μFE ≈ 2×102 cm2 V-1 s-1 at 300K, which increases to \u3e 6×103 cm2 V-1 s-1 down to 10K. The 2D/2D low-resistance ohmic contacts presented here represent a new device paradigm that overcomes a significant bottleneck in the performance of TMDs and other 2D materials as the channel materials in post-silicon electronic

Understanding Variations in Circularly Polarized Photoluminescence in Monolayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenides

Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides are promising materials for valleytronic operations. They exhibit two inequivalent valleys in the Brillouin zone, and the valley populations can be directly controlled and determined using circularly polarized optical excitation and emission. The photoluminescence polarization reflects the ratio of the two valley populations. A wide range of values for the degree of circularly polarized emission, Pcirc, has been reported for monolayer WS2, although the reasons for the disparity are unclear. Here we optically populate one valley, and measure Pcirc to explore the valley population dynamics at room temperature in a large number of monolayer WS2 samples synthesized via chemical vapor deposition. Under resonant excitation, Pcirc ranges from 2% to 32%, and we observe a pronounced inverse relationship between photoluminescence (PL) intensity and Pcirc. High quality samples exhibiting strong PL and long exciton relaxation time exhibit a low degree of valley polarization, and vice versa. This behavior is also demonstrated in monolayer WSe2 samples and transferred WS2, indicating that this correlation may be more generally observed and account for the wide variations reported for Pcirc. Time resolved PL provides insight into the role of radiative and non-radiative contributions to the observed polarization. Short non-radiative lifetimes result in a higher measured polarization by limiting opportunity for depolarizing scattering events

Stacking-Dependent Optical Properties in Bilayer WSe2

The twist angle between the monolayers in van der Waals heterostructures provides a new degree of freedom in tuning material properties. We compare the optical properties of WSe2 homobilayers with 2H and 3R stacking using photoluminescence, Raman spectroscopy, and reflectance contrast measurements under ambient and cryogenic temperatures. Clear stacking- dependent differences are evident for all temperatures, with both photoluminescence and reflectance contrast spectra exhibiting a blue shift in spectral features in 2H compared to 3R bilayers. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations elucidate the source of the variations and the fundamental differences between 2H and 3R stackings. DFT finds larger energies for both A and B excitonic features in 2H than in 3R, consistent with experimental results. In both stacking geometries, the intensity of the dominant A1g Raman mode exhibits significant changes as a function of laser excitation wavelength. These variations in intensity are intimately linked to the stacking- and temperature-dependent optical absorption through resonant enhancement effects. The strongest enhancement is achieved when the laser excitation coincides with the C excitonic feature, leading to the largest Raman intensity under 514 nm excitation in 2H stacking and at 520 nm in 3R stacked WSe2 bilayers

Intramuscular electroporation with the pro-opiomelanocortin gene in rat adjuvant arthritis

Endogenous opioid peptides have an essential role in the intrinsic modulation and control of inflammatory pain, which could be therapeutically useful. In this study, we established a muscular electroporation method for the gene transfer of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) in vivo and investigated its effect on inflammatory pain in a rat model of rheumatoid arthritis. The gene encoding human POMC was inserted into a modified pCMV plasmid, and 0–200 μg of the plasmid-POMC DNA construct was transferred into the tibialis anterior muscle of rats treated with complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) with or without POMC gene transfer by the electroporation method. The safety and efficiency of the gene transfer was assessed with the following parameters: thermal hyperalgesia, serum adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and endorphin levels, paw swelling and muscle endorphin levels at 1, 2 and 3 weeks after electroporation. Serum ACTH and endorphin levels of the group into which the gene encoding POMC had been transferred were increased to about 13–14-fold those of the normal control. These levels peaked 1 week after electroporation and significantly decreased 2 weeks after electroporation. Rats that had received the gene encoding POMC had less thermal hypersensitivity and paw swelling than the non-gene-transferred group at days 3, 5 and 7 after injection with CFA. Our promising results showed that transfer of the gene encoding POMC by electroporation is a new and effective method for its expression in vivo, and the analgesic effects of POMC cDNA with electroporation in a rat model of rheumatoid arthritis are reversed by naloxone