Coulomb Drag of Massless Fermions in Graphene

Using a novel structure, consisting of two, independently contacted graphene single layers separated by an ultra-thin dielectric, we experimentally measure the Coulomb drag of massless fermions in graphene. At temperatures higher than 50 K, the Coulomb drag follows a temperature and carrier density dependence consistent with the Fermi liquid regime. As the temperature is reduced, the Coulomb drag exhibits giant fluctuations with an increasing amplitude, thanks to the interplay between coherent transport in the graphene layer and interaction between the two layers.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Scaling Properties of Ge-SixGe1-x Core-Shell Nanowire Field Effect Transistors

We demonstrate the fabrication of high-performance Ge-SixGe1-x core-shell nanowire field-effect transistors with highly doped source and drain, and systematically investigate their scaling properties. Highly doped source and drain regions are realized by low energy boron implantation, which enables efficient carrier injection with a contact resistance much lower than the nanowire resistance. We extract key device parameters, such as intrinsic channel resistance, carrier mobility, effective channel length, and external contact resistance, as well as benchmark the device switching speed and ON/OFF current ratio.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices (in press

Realization of a High Mobility Dual-gated Graphene Field Effect Transistor with Al2O3 Dielectric

We fabricate and characterize dual-gated graphene field-effect transistors (FETs) using Al2O3 as top-gate dielectric. We use a thin Al film as a nucleation layer to enable the atomic layer deposition of Al2O3. Our devices show mobility values of over 8,000 cm2/Vs at room temperature, a finding which indicates that the top-gate stack does not significantly increase the carrier scattering, and consequently degrade the device characteristics. We propose a device model to fit the experimental data using a single mobility value.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Appl. Phys. Let

Quantum Size Effects on the Chemical Sensing Performance of Two-Dimensional Semiconductors

We investigate the role of quantum confinement on the performance of gas sensors based on two-dimensional InAs membranes. Pd-decorated InAs membranes configured as H2 sensors are shown to exhibit strong thickness dependence, with ~100x enhancement in the sensor response as the thickness is reduced from 48 to 8 nm. Through detailed experiments and modeling, the thickness scaling trend is attributed to the quantization of electrons which favorably alters both the position and the transport properties of charge carriers; thus making them more susceptible to surface phenomena

High performance germanium nanowire field-effect transistors and tunneling field-effect transistors

textThe scaling of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) field-effect transistors (FETs) has continued for over four decades, providing device performance gains and considerable economic benefits. However, continuing this scaling trend is being impeded by the increase in dissipated power. Considering the exponential increase of the number of transistors per unit area in high speed processors, the power dissipation has now become the major challenge for device scaling, and has led to tremendous research activity to mitigate this issue, and thereby extend device scaling limits. In such efforts, non-planar device structures, high mobility channel materials, and devices operating under different physics have been extensively investigated. Non-planar device geometries reduce short-channel effects by enhancing the electrostatic control over the channel. The devices using high mobility channel materials such as germanium (Ge), SiGe, and III-V can outperform Si MOSFETs in terms of switching speed. Tunneling field-effect transistors use interband tunneling of carriers rather than thermal emission, and can potentially realize low power devices by achieving subthreshold swings below the thermal limit of 60 mV/dec at room temperature. In this work, we examine two device options which can potentially provide high switching speed combined with reduced power, namely germanium nanowire (NW) field-effect transistors (FETs) and tunneling field-effect transistors (TFETs). The devices use germanium (Ge) – silicon-germanium (Si[subscript x]Ge[subscript 1-x]) core-shell nanowires (NWs) as channel material for the realization of the devices, synthesized using a 'bottom-up' growth process. The device design and material choice are motivated by enhanced electrostatic control in the cylindrical geometry, high hole mobility, and lower bandgap by comparison to Si. We employ low energy ion implantation of boron and phosphorous to realize highly doped contact regions, which in turn provide efficient carrier injection. Our Ge-Si[subscript x]Ge[subscript 1-x]­ core-shell NW FETs and NW TFETs were fabricated using a conventional CMOS process and their electrical properties were systematically characterized. In addition, TCAD (Technology computer-aided design) simulation is also employed for the analysis of the devices.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Performance Enhancement of Flexible Polymer Triboelectric Generator through Polarization of the Embedded Ferroelectric Polymer Layer

In this work, we report on a flexible triboelectric generator (TEG) with a multilayer polymer structure, consisting of a poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene) (PVDF-TrFE) layer sandwiched by polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layers for the performance enhancement of TEGs. We confirmed that the output performance of the TEG is closely dependent on the structure and polarization direction of the PVDF-TrFE layer. In addition, the PDMS layer serves as the electron trapping layer and suppresses the discharging of the surface charges, boosting the output performance. Furthermore, the polarized PVDF-TrFE layer in the preferred direction contributes to increasing the surface potential during the contact–separation motion. The interaction between these two polymer layers synergistically leads to the boosted output performance of TEGs. Specifically, the maximum peak-to-peak output voltage and current density of 420 V and 50 μA/cm2 generated by the proposed architecture, representing approximately a fivefold improvement compared with the TEG with a single layer, even though the same friction layers were used for contact electrification

Transmission Scheduling Schemes of Industrial Wireless Sensors for Heterogeneous Multiple Control Systems

The transmission scheduling scheme of wireless networks for industrial control systems is a crucial design component since it directly affects the stability of networked control systems. In this paper, we propose a novel transmission scheduling framework to guarantee the stability of heterogeneous multiple control systems over unreliable wireless channels. Based on the explicit control stability conditions, a constrained optimization problem is proposed to maximize the minimum slack of the stability constraint for the heterogeneous control systems. We propose three transmission scheduling schemes, namely centralized stationary random access, distributed random access, and Lyapunov-based scheduling scheme, to solve the constrained optimization problem with a low computation cost. The three proposed transmission scheduling schemes were evaluated on heterogeneous multiple control systems with different link conditions. One interesting finding is that the proposed centralized Lyapunov-based approach provides almost ideal performance in the context of control stability. Furthermore, the distributed random access is still useful for the small number of links since it also reduces the operational overhead without significantly sacrificing the control performance

Robust Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks for Networked Control Systems

The stability guarantee of wireless networked control systems is still challenging due to the complex interaction among the layers and the vulnerability to network faults, such as link and node failures. In this paper, we propose a robust wireless sensor and actuator network (R-WSAN) to maintain the control stability of multiple plants over the spatial-temporal changes of wireless networks. The proposed joint design protocol combines the distributed controller of control systems and the clustering, resource scheduling, and control task sharing scheme of wireless networks over a hierarchical cluster-based network. In particular, R-WSAN decouples the tasks from the inherently unreliable nodes and allows control tasks to share between nodes of wireless networks. Our simulations demonstrate that R-WSAN provides the enhanced resilience to the network faults for sensing and actuation without significantly disrupting the control performance

Triboelectric Hydrogen Gas Sensor with Pd Functionalized Surface

Palladium (Pd)-based hydrogen (H2) gas sensors have been widely investigated thanks to its fast reaction and high sensitivity to hydrogen. Various sensing mechanisms have been adopted for H2 gas sensors; however, all the sensors must be powered through an external battery. We report here an H2 gas sensor that can detect H2 by measuring the output voltages generated during contact electrification between two friction surfaces. When the H2 sensor, composed of Pd-coated ITO (indium tin oxide) and PET (polyethylene Terephthalate) film, is exposed to H2, its output voltage is varied in proportion to H2 concentration because the work function (WF) of Pd-coated surface changes, altering triboelectric charging behavior. Specifically, the output voltage of the sensor is gradually increased as exposing H2 concentration increases. Reproducible and sensitive sensor response was observed up 1% H2 exposure. The approach introduced here can easily be adopted to development of triboelectric gas sensors detecting other gas species