Fabrication of nanometer-spaced electrodes using gold nanoparticles

A simple and highly reproducible technique is demonstrated for the fabrication of metallic electrodes with nanometer separation. Commercially available bare gold colloidal nanoparticles are first trapped between prefabricated large-separation electrodes to form a low-resistance bridge by an ac electric field. A large dc voltage is then applied to break the bridge via electromigration at room temperature, which consistently produces gaps in the sub-10 nm range. The technique is readily applied to prefabricated electrodes with separation up to 1 micron, which can be defined using optical lithography. The simple fabrication scheme will facilitate electronic transport studies of individual nanostructures made by chemical synthesis. As an example, measurement of a thiol-coated gold nanoparticle showing a clear Coulomb staircase is presented.Comment: To appear in Appl. Phys. Lett. in Dec. 200

Efros-Shklovskii variable range hopping in reduced graphene oxide sheets of varying carbon sp2 fraction

We investigate the low temperature electron transport properties of chemically reduced graphene oxide (RGO) sheets with different carbon sp2 fractions of 55 to 80 %. We show that in the low bias (Ohmic) regime, the temperature (T) dependent resistance (R) of all the devices follow Efros-Shklovskii variable range hopping (ES-VRH) R ~ exp[(T(ES)/T)^1/2] with T(ES) decreasing from 30976 to 4225 K and electron localization length increasing from 0.46 to 3.21 nm with increasing sp2 fraction. From our data, we predict that for the temperature range used in our study, Mott-VRH may not be observed even at 100 % sp2 fraction samples due to residual topological defects and structural disorders. From the localization length, we calculate a bandgap variation of our RGO from 1.43 to 0.21 eV with increasing sp2 fraction from 55 to 80 % which agrees remarkably well with theoretical prediction. We also show that, in the high bias regime, the hopping is field driven and the data follow R ~ exp[(E(0)/E)^1/2] providing further evidence of ES-VRH.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

Controlled fabrication of single electron transistors from single-walled carbon nanotubes

Single electron transistors (SETs) are fabricated by placing single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) on a 100 nm wide local Al/Al2O3 bottom gate and then contacting with Pd electrodes. Coulomb oscillations up to 125 K were observed and charging energies of 12-15 meV with level spacing of ~5 meV were measured from the Couloumb diamond, in agreement with a dot size of ~100 nm, implying that the local gate defines the dot size by bending SWNT at the edges and controls its operation. This "mechanical template" approach may facilitate large scale fabrication of SET devices using SWNT.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Coulomb Blockade and Hopping Conduction in Graphene Quantum Dots Array

We show that the low temperature electron transport properties of chemically functionalized graphene can be explained as sequential tunneling of charges through a two dimensional array of graphene quantum dots (GQD). Below 15 K, a total suppression of current due to Coulomb blockade through GQD array was observed. Temperature dependent current-gate voltage characteristics show Coulomb oscillations with energy scales of 6.2-10 meV corresponding to GQD sizes of 5-8 nm while resistance data exhibit an Efros-Shklovskii variable range hopping arising from structural and size induced disorder.Comment: The document will be appeared in Physics Review

The Effect of Carbon Nanotube/Organic Semiconductor Interfacial Area on the Performance of Organic Transistors

We show that the performance of pentacene transistors can be significantly improved by maximizing the interfacial area at single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)/pentacene. The interfacial areas are varied by anchoring short SWCNTs of different densities (0-30/{\mu}m) to the Pd electrodes. The average mobility is increased three, six and nine times for low, medium and high SWCNT densities, respectively, compared to the devices with zero SWCNT. The current on-off ratio and on-current are increased up to 40 times and 20 times with increasing the SWCNT density. We explain the improved device performance using reduced barrier height of SWCNT/pentacene interface.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

High yield fabrication of chemically reduced graphene oxide field effect transistors by dielectrophoresis

We demonstrate high yield fabrication of field effect transistors (FET) using chemically reduced graphene oxide (RGO) sheets suspended in water assembled via dielectrophoresis. The two terminal resistances of the devices were improved by an order of magnitude upon mild annealing at 200 0C in Ar/H2 environment for 1 hour. With the application of a backgate voltage, all of the devices showed FET behavior with maximum hole and electron mobilities of 4.0 and 1.5 cm2/Vs respectively. This study shows promise for scaled up fabrication of graphene based nanoelectronic devices.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

The impact of carbon sp(2) fraction of reduced graphene oxide on the performance of reduced graphene oxide contacted organic transistors

One of the major bottlenecks in fabricating high performance organic field effect transistors (OFETs) is a large interfacial contact barrier between metal electrodes and organic semiconductors (OSCs) which makes the charge injection inefficient. Recently, reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has been suggested as an alternative electrode material for OFETs. RGO has tunable electronic properties and its conductivity can be varied by several orders of magnitude by varying the carbon sp(2) fraction. However, whether the sp(2) fraction of RGO in the electrode affects the performance of the fabricated OFETs is yet to be investigated. In this study, we demonstrate that the performance of OFETs with pentacene as OSC and RGO as electrode can be continuously improved by increasing the carbon sp(2) fraction of RGO. When compared to control palladium electrodes, the mobility of the OFETs shows an improvement of similar to 200% for 61% sp(2) fraction RGO, which further improves to similar to 500% for 80% RGO electrode. Similar improvements were also observed in current on-off ratio, on-current, and transconductance. Our study suggests that, in addition to p-p interaction at RGO/pentacene interface, the tunable electronic properties of RGO electrode have a significant role in OFETs performance

High quality solution processed carbon nanotube transistors assembled by dielectrophoresis

We report on high quality individual solution processed single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) field effect transistors assembled from a commercial surfactant free solution via dielectrophoresis. The devices show field effect mobilities up to 1380 cm(2)/V s and on-state conductance up to 6 mu S. The mobility values are an order of magnitude improvement over previous solution processed SWNT devices and close to the theoretical limit. These results demonstrate that high quality SWNT devices can be obtained from solution processing and will have significant impact in high yield fabrication of SWNT nanoelectronic devices