The unique property of bilayer graphene to show a band gap tunable by
external electrical fields enables a variety of different device concepts with
novel functionalities for electronic, optoelectronic and sensor applications.
So far the operation of bilayer graphene based field effect transistors
requires two individual gates to vary the channel's conductance and to create a
band gap. In this paper we report on a method to increase the on/off ratio in
single gated bilayer graphene field effect transistors by adsorbate doping. The
adsorbate dopants on the upper side of the graphene establish a displacement
field perpendicular to the graphene surface breaking the inversion symmetry of
the two graphene layers. Low temperature measurements indicate, that the
increased on/off ratio is caused by the opening of a mobility gap. Beside field
effect transistors the presented approach can also be employed for other
bilayer graphene based devices like photodetectors for THz to infrared
radiation, chemical sensors and in more sophisticated structures such as
antidot- or superlattices where an artificial potential landscape has to be
created.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure