Quantum Transport and Field Induced Insulating States in Bilayer Graphene pnp Junctions

We perform transport measurements in high quality bilayer graphene pnp junctions with suspended top gates. At a magnetic field B=0, we demonstrate band gap opening by an applied perpendicular electric field, with an On/Off ratio up to 20,000 at 260mK. Within the band gap, the conductance decreases exponentially by 3 orders of magnitude with increasing electric field, and can be accounted for by variable range hopping with a gate-tunable density of states, effective mass, and localization length. At large B, we observe quantum Hall conductance with fractional values, which arise from equilibration of edge states between differentially-doped regions, and the presence of an insulating state at filling factor {\nu}=0. Our work underscores the importance of bilayer graphene for both fundamental interest and technological applications.Comment: 4 figures, to appear in Nano Lett. Minor typos correcte

Miniature Piezoelectric Shaker for Distribution of Unconsolidated Samples to Instrument Cells

The planned Mars Science Laboratory mission requires inlet funnels for channeling unconsolidated powdered samples from the sampling and sieving mechanisms into instrument test cells, which are required to reduce cross-contamination of the samples and to minimize residue left in the funnels after each sample transport. To these ends, a solid-state shaking mechanism has been created that requires low power and is lightweight, but is sturdy enough to survive launch vibration. The funnel mechanism is driven by asymmetrically mounted, piezoelectric flexure actuators that are out of the load path so that they do not support the funnel mass. Each actuator is a titanium, flextensional piezoelectric device driven by a piezoelectric stack. The stack has Invar endcaps with a half-spherical recess. The Invar is used to counteract the change in stress as the actuators are cooled to Mars ambient temperatures. A ball screw is threaded through the actuator frame into the recess to apply pre-stress, and to trap the piezoelectric stack and endcaps in flexure. During the vibration cycle of the flextensional actuator frame, the compression in the piezoelectric stack may decrease to the point that it is unstressed; however, because the ball joint cannot pull, tension in the piezoelectric stack cannot be produced. The actuators are offset at 120 . In this flight design, redundancy is required, so three actuators are used though only one is needed to assist in the movement. The funnel is supported at three contact points offset to the hexapod support contacts. The actuator surface that does not contact the ring is free to expand. Two other configurations can be used to mechanically tune the vibration. The free end can be designed to drive a fixed mass, or can be used to drive a free mass to excite impacts (see figure). Tests on this funnel mechanism show a high density of resonance modes between 1 and 20 kHz. A subset of these between 9 and 12 kHz was used to drive the CheMin actuators at 7 V peak to peak. These actuators could be driven by a single resonance, or swept through a frequency range to decrease the possibility that a portion of the funnel surface was not coincident with a nodal line (line of no displacement). The frequency of actuation can be electrically controlled and monitored and can also be mechanically tuned by the addition of tuning mass on the free end of the actuator. The devices are solid-state and can be designed with no macroscopically moving parts. This design has been tested in a vacuum at both Mars and Earth ambient temperatures ranging from 30 to 25

Suspension and Measurement of Graphene and Bi2Se3 Atomic Membranes

Coupling high quality, suspended atomic membranes to specialized electrodes enables investigation of many novel phenomena, such as spin or Cooper pair transport in these two dimensional systems. However, many electrode materials are not stable in acids that are used to dissolve underlying substrates. Here we present a versatile and powerful multi-level lithographical technique to suspend atomic membranes, which can be applied to the vast majority of substrate, membrane and electrode materials. Using this technique, we fabricated suspended graphene devices with Al electrodes and mobility of 5500 cm^2/Vs. We also demonstrate, for the first time, fabrication and measurement of a free-standing thin Bi2Se3 membrane, which has low contact resistance to electrodes and a mobility of >~500 cm^2/Vs

High Current ESD Test of Advanced Triple Junction Solar Array Coupon

Testing was conducted on an Advanced Triple Junction (ATJ) coupon that was part of a risk reduction effort in the development of a high-powered solar array design by Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SSL). The ATJ coupon was a small, 4-cell, two-string configuration that has served as the basic test coupon design used in previous SSL environmental aging campaigns. The coupon has many attributes of the flight design; e.g., substrate structure with graphite face sheets, integrated by-pass diodes, cell interconnects, RTV grout, wire routing, etc. The objective of the present test was to evaluate the performance of the coupon after being subjected to induced electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing at two string voltages (100 V, 150 V) and four array currents (1.65 A, 2.0 A, 2.475 A, and 3.3 A). An ESD test circuit, unique to SSL solar array design, was built that simulates the effect of missing cells and strings in a full solar panel with special primary arc flashover circuitry. A total of 73 primary arcs were obtained that included 7 temporary sustained arcs (TSA) events. The durations of the TSAs ranged from 50 micro-seconds to 2.75 milli-seconds. All TSAs occurred at a string voltage of 150 V. Post-test Large Area Pulsed Solar Simulator (LAPSS), Dark I-V, and By-Pass Diode tests showed that no degradation occurred due to the TSA events. In addition, the post-test insulation resistance measured was > 50 G-ohms between cells and substrate. These test results indicate a robust design for application to a high-current, high-power mission

High Current ESD Test of Advanced Triple Junction Solar Array Coupon

Testing was conducted on an Advanced Triple Junction (ATJ) coupon that was part of a risk reduction effort in the development of a high-powered solar array design by Space Systems Loral, LLC (SSL). The ATJ coupon was a small, 4-cell, two-string configuration of flight-type design that has served as the basic test coupon design used in previous SSL environmental aging campaigns. The objective of the present test was to evaluate the performance of the coupon after being subjected to induced electrostatic discharge (ESD) testing at two string voltages (100 V, 150 V) and four string currents (1.65 A, 2.0 A, 2.475 A, and 3.3 A). An ESD test circuit, unique to SSL solar array design, was built that simulates the effect of missing cells and strings in a full solar panel with special primary arc flashover circuitry. A total of 73 primary arcs were obtained that included 7 temporary sustained arcs (TSA) events. The durations of the TSAs ranged from 50 micro-seconds to 2.75 milli-seconds. All TSAs occurred at a string voltage of 150 V. Post-ESD functional testing showed that no degradation occurred due to the TSA events. These test results point to a robust design for application to a high-current, high-power mission

By-Pass Diode Temperature Tests of a Solar Array Coupon Under Space Thermal Environment Conditions

Tests were performed on a 56-cell Advanced Triple Junction solar array coupon whose purpose was to determine margin available for bypass diodes integrated with new, large multi-junction solar cells that are manufactured from a 4-inch wafer. The tests were performed under high vacuum with cold and ambient coupon back-side. The bypass diodes were subjected to a sequence of increasing discrete current steps from 0 Amp to 2.0 Amp in steps of 0.25 Amp. At each current step, a temperature measurement was obtained via remote viewing by an infrared camera. This paper discusses the experimental methodology, including the calibration of the thermal imaging system, and the results

Magnetoconductance Oscillations in High-Mobility Suspended Bilayer and Trilayer Graphene

We report pronounced magnetoconductance oscillations observed on suspended bilayer and trilayer graphene devices with mobilities up to 270,000 cm2/Vs. For bilayer devices, we observe conductance minima at all integer filling factors nu between 0 and -8, as well as a small plateau at {\nu}=1/3. For trilayer devices, we observe features at nu=-1, -2, -3 and -4, and at {\nu}~0.5 that persist to 4.5K at B=8T. All of these features persist for all accessible values of Vg and B, and could suggest the onset of symmetry breaking of the first few Landau (LL) levels and fractional quantum Hall states.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. Let