Nanometer Thick Elastic Graphene Engine

Significant progress has been made in the construction and theoretical understanding of molecular motors because of their potential use. Here, we have demonstrated fabrication of a simple but powerful 1 nm thick graphene engine. The engine comprises a high elastic membrane-piston made of graphene and weakly chemisorbed ClF₃ molecules as the high power volume changeable actuator, while a 532 nm LASER acts as the ignition plug. Rapid volume expansion of the ClF₃ molecules leads to graphene blisters. The size of the blister is controllable by changing the ignition parameters. The estimated internal pressure per expansion cycle of the engine is about ∼10⁶ Pa. The graphene engine presented here shows exceptional reliability, showing no degradation after 10 000 cycles

Electron Doping of Ultrathin Black Phosphorus with Cu Adatoms

Few-layer black phosphorus is a monatomic two-dimensional crystal with a direct band gap that has high carrier mobility for both holes and electrons. Similarly to other layered atomic crystals, like graphene or layered transition metal dichalcogenides, the transport behavior of few-layer black phosphorus is sensitive to surface impurities, adsorbates, and adatoms. Here we study the effect of Cu adatoms onto few-layer black phosphorus by characterizing few-layer black phosphorus field effect devices and by performing first-principles calculations. We find that the addition of Cu adatoms can be used to controllably n-dope few layer black phosphorus, thereby lowering the threshold voltage for n-type conduction without degrading the transport properties. We demonstrate a scalable 2D material-based complementary inverter which utilizes a boron nitride gate dielectric, a graphite gate, and a single bP crystal for both the p- and n-channels. The inverter operates at matched input and output voltages, exhibits a gain of 46, and does not require different contact metals or local electrostatic gating

Tuning and Persistent Switching of Graphene Plasmons on a Ferroelectric Substrate

We characterized plasmon propagation in graphene on thin films of the high-κ dielectric PbZr_0.3Ti_0.7O₃ (PZT). Significant modulation (up to ±75%) of the plasmon wavelength was achieved with application of ultrasmall voltages (< ±1 V) across PZT. Analysis of the observed plasmonic fringes at the graphene edge indicates that carriers in graphene on PZT behave as noninteracting Dirac Fermions approximated by a semiclassical Drude response, which may be attributed to strong dielectric screening at the graphene/PZT interface. Additionally, significant plasmon scattering occurs at the grain boundaries of PZT from topographic and/or polarization induced graphene conductivity variation in the interior of graphene, reducing the overall plasmon propagation length. Lastly, through application of 2 V across PZT, we demonstrate the capability to persistently modify the plasmonic response of graphene through transient voltage application