arXiv subjects

Linyou Cao

Publications and source records attributed to Linyou Cao.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Asymmetrical contact scaling and measurements in MoS2 FETs

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have great potential for use in future electronics due to their atomically thin nature which withstands short channel effects and thus enables better scalability. Device scaling is the process of reducing all device dimensions to achieve higher device density in a certain chip area. For 2D materials-based transistors, both the channel and contact scalability must be investigated. The channel scalability of 2D materials has been thoroughly investigated, confirming their resilience to short-channel effects. However, systematic studies on contact scalability remain rare and the current understanding of contact scaling in 2D FET is inconsistent and oversimplified. Here we combine physically scaled contacts and asymmetrical contact measurements to investigate the contact scaling behavior in 2D field-effect transistors (FETs). The asymmetrical contact measurements directly compare electron injection with different contact lengths while using the exact same channel, eliminating channel-to-channel variations. Compared to devices with long contact lengths, devices with short contact lengths (scaled contacts) exhibit larger variation, smaller drain currents at high drain-source voltages, and a higher chance of showing early saturation and negative differential resistance. Quantum transport simulations show that the transfer length of Ni-MoS2 contacts can be as short as 5 nm. Our results suggest that charge injection at the source contact is different from injection at the drain side: scaled source contacts can limit the drain current, whereas scaled drain contacts cannot. Furthermore, we clearly identified that the transfer length depends on the quality of the metal-2D interface. The asymmetrical contact measurements proposed here will enable further understanding of contact scaling behavior at various interfaces.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Gate-tunable cross-plane heat dissipation in single-layer transition metal dichalcogenides

Efficient heat dissipation to the substrate is crucial for optimal device performance in nanoelectronics. We develop a theory of electronic thermal boundary conductance (TBC) mediated by remote phonon scattering for the single-layer transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors MoS$_{2}$ and WS$_{2}$, and model their electronic TBC with different dielectric substrates (SiO$_{2}$, HfO$_{2}$ and Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$). Our results indicate that the electronic TBC is strongly dependent on the electron density, suggesting that it can be modulated by the gate electrode in field-effect transistors, and this effect is most pronounced with Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$. Our work paves the way for the design of novel thermal devices with gate-tunable cross-plane heat-dissipative properties.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Exciton Mott Transition in Two-Dimensional Semiconductors

Exciton many-body interaction bear great implication for application in advanced photonic devices and quantum science and technology such as quantum computing, but the fundamental understanding about exciton many-body interaction is very limited. Here we provide numerous new insights into the fundamentals of exciton Mott transition (EMT), a manifestation of exciton many-body interaction evidenced by the ionization of excitons into a plasma of unbound electrons and holes, i.e. electron-hole plasma (EHP), by taking advantage of the unique properties of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors like monolayer MoS2. We clarify long-standing controversies on the continuousness and criteria of EMT, quantify the charge carrier distribution among the co-existing exciton and EHP phases, establish correlation between the emission features and charge densities of EHP, and elucidate the physical state of EHP charge carriers as nanoscale electron-hole complex rather than individually free charges. These results lay down a foundation for furthering the studies of exciton many-body interaction and also for utilizing the interaction in quantum science/technology and the development of advanced optoelectronic devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Room-Temperature Electron-Hole Liquid in Monolayer MoS2

Excitons in semiconductors are usually non interacting and behave like an ideal gas, but may condense to a strongly correlated liquid like state, i.e. electron hole liquid (EHL), at high density and appropriate temperature. EHL is a macroscopic quantum state with exotic properties and represents the ultimate attainable charge excitation density in steady states. It bears great promise for a variety of fields such as ultrahigh power photonics and quantum science and technology. However, the condensation of gas like excitons to EHL has often been restricted to cryogenic temperatures, which significantly limits the prospect of EHL for use in practical applications. Herein we demonstrate the formation of EHL at room temperature in monolayer MoS2 by taking advantage of the monolayer's extraordinarily strong exciton binding energy. This work demonstrates the potential for the liquid like state of charge excitations to be a useful platform for the studies of macroscopic quantum phenomena and the development of optoelectronic devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Low-loss composite photonic platform based on 2D semiconductor monolayers

Two dimensional materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are promising for optical modulation, detection, and light emission since their material properties can be tuned on-demand via electrostatic doping. The optical properties of TMDs have been shown to change drastically with doping in the wavelength range near the excitonic resonances. However, little is known about the effect of doping on the optical properties of TMDs away from these resonances, where the material is transparent and therefore could be leveraged in photonic circuits. Here, we probe the electro-optic response of monolayer TMDs at near infrared (NIR) wavelengths (i.e. deep in the transparency regime), by integrating them on silicon nitride (SiN) photonic structures to induce strong light$-$matter interaction with the monolayer. We dope the monolayer to carrier densities of ($7.2 \pm 0.8$) $\times$ $10^{13} \textrm{cm}^{-2}$, by electrically gating the TMD using an ionic liquid. We show strong electro-refractive response in monolayer tungsten disulphide (WS$_2$) at NIR wavelengths by measuring a large change in the real part of refractive index $Δ$n = $0.53$, with only a minimal change in the imaginary part $Δ$k = $0.004$. The doping induced phase change ($Δ$n), compared to the induced absorption ($Δ$k) measured for WS$_2$ ($Δ$n/$Δ$k $\sim 125$), a key metric for photonics, is an order of magnitude higher than the $Δ$n/$Δ$k for bulk materials like silicon ($Δ$n/$Δ$k $\sim 10$), making it ideal for various photonic applications. We further utilize this strong tunable effect to demonstrate an electrostatically gated SiN-WS$_2$ phase modulator using a WS$_2$-HfO$_2$ (Hafnia)-ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) capacitive configuration, that achieves a phase modulation efficiency (V$_π$L) of 0.8 V $\cdot$ cm with a RC limited bandwidth of 0.3 GHz.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2018

Immunity to Scaling in MoS2 Transistors Using Edge Contacts

Atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) materials are promising candidates for sub-10 nm transistor channels due to their ultrathin body thickness, which results in strong electrostatic gate control. Properly scaling a transistor technology requires reducing both the channel length (distance from source to drain) and the contact length (distance that source and drain interface with semiconducting channel). Contact length scaling remains an unresolved epidemic for transistor scaling, affecting devices from all semiconductors, from silicon to 2D materials. Here, we show that clean edge contacts to 2D MoS2 provide immunity to the contact-scaling problem, with performance that is independent of contact length down to the 20 nm regime. Using a directional ion beam, in situ edge contacts of various metal-MoS2 interfaces are studied. Characterization of the intricate edge interface using cross-sectional electron microscopy reveals distinct morphological effects on the MoS2 depending on its thickness, from monolayer to few-layer films. Chromium is found to outperform other metals in the edge contact scheme, which is attributed to the shorter Cr-MoS2 bond length. Compared to scaled top contacts with 20 nm contact length, in situ edge contacts yield better performance with an effective contact length of ~ 1 nm and 18 times higher carrier injection efficiency. The in situ edge contacts also exhibit ~8 times higher performance compared to the best-reported edge contacts. Our work provides experimental evidence for a solution to contact scaling in transistors, using 2D materials with clean edge contact interfaces, opening a new way of designing devices with 2D materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Giant Gating Tunability of Optical Refractive Index in Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayers

We report that the refractive index of transition metal dichacolgenide (TMDC) monolayers, such as MoS2, WS2, and WSe2, can be substantially tuned by > 60% in the imaginary part and > 20% in the real part around exciton resonances using CMOS-compatible electrical gating. This giant tunablility is rooted in the dominance of excitonic effects in the refractive index of the monolayers and the strong susceptibility of the excitons to the influence of injected charge carriers. The tunability mainly results from the effects of injected charge carriers to broaden the spectral width of excitonic interband transitions and to facilitate the interconversion of neutral and charged excitons. The other effects of the injected charge carriers, such as renormalizing bandgap and changing exciton binding energy, only play negligible roles. We also demonstrate that the atomically thin monolayers, when combined with photonic structures, can enable the efficiencies of optical absorption (reflection) tuned from 40% (60%) to 80% (20%) due to the giant tunability of refractive index. This work may pave the way towards the development of field-effect photonics in which the optical functionality can be controlled with CMOS circuits.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Enhancing Multifunctionalities of Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayers via Intercalation of Molecules and Ions

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers present a remarkable multifunctional material with potential to enable the development of a wide range of novel devices. However, the functionalities observed often fall short of the expectation, which hinders the device development. Here we demonstrate that the optical, catalytic, and thermal functionalities of TMDC monolayers can all be substantially enhanced by up to orders of magnitude with the intercalation of water molecules or small cations (H+ and Li+) between the monolayers and underlying substrates. In contrast, the same molecules or cations adsorbed on top of the monolayers show negligible effects. We also discover two major roles of the intercalated species in the enhancement: doping the monolayers and modifying the interaction of the monolayers with the substrate. The result points out a versatile and convenient strategy of using the intercalation of molecules or ions to enhance the functionalities of TMDC monolayers.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

In-Situ Monitoring of Thermal Annealing Induced Evolution in Film Morphology and Film-Substrate Bonding in a Monolayer MoS2 Film

We perform in-situ two-cycle thermal cycling and annealing studies for a transferred CVD-grown monolayer MoS2 on a SiO2/Si substrate, using spatially resolved micro-Raman and PL spectroscopy. After the thermal cycling and being annealed at 305 deg C twice, the film morphology and film-substrate bonding are significantly modified, which together with the removal of polymer residues cause major changes in the strain and doping distribution over the film, and thus the optical properties. Before annealing, the strain associated with ripples in the transferred film dominates the spatial distributions of the PL peak position and intensity over the film; after annealing, the variation in film-substrate bonding, affecting both strain and doping, becomes the leading factor. This work reveals that the film-substrate bonding, and thus the strain and doping, is unstable under thermal stress, which is important for understanding the substrate effects on the optical and transport properties of the 2D material and their impact on device applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Ultrathin Semiconductor Perfect Light Absorbers with High Spectral, Polarization, and Angle Selectivity for Arbitrary Wavelengths

Enabling perfect light absorption in ultrathin materials promises the development of exotic photonic devices. Here we demonstrate new strategies that can provide capabilities to rationally design ultrathin (thickness < λ/10~λ/5) semiconductor perfect absorbers for arbitrary wavelengths, including those at which the intrinsic absorption of the semiconductor is weak, e.g. Si for near-IR wavelengths. This is in stark contrast with the existing studies on ultrathin perfect absorbers, which have focused on metallic materials or highly-absorptive semiconductors. Our design strategies are built upon an intuitive model, coupled leaky mode theory that we recently developed and can turn the design for perfect absorbers to the design for leaky modes. The designed absorber is featured with extraordinary absorption enhancement, miniaturized dimension, and high selectivity for the wavelength, polarization, and angle of incident light. It can enable the development of flexible, light-weight, high-performance, cost-effective, and multifunctional optoelectronic devices that are difficult with current light absorbers.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Fundamental Limits of Exciton-Exciton Annihilation for Light Emission in Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Monolayers

We quantitatively illustrate the fundamental limit that exciton-exciton annihilation (EEA) may impose to the light emission of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) materials. The EEA in TMDC monolayers shows dependence on the interaction with substrates as its rate increases from 0.1 cm2/s (0.05 cm2/s) to 0.3 cm2/s (0.1 cm2/s) with the substrates removed for WS2 (MoS2) monolayers. It turns to be the major pathway of exciton decay and dominates the luminescence efficiency when the exciton density is beyond 1010 cm-2 in suspended monolayers or 1011 cm-2 in supported monolayers. This sets an upper limit on the density of injected charges in light emission devices for the realization of optimal luminescence efficiency. The strong EEA rate also dictates the pumping threshold for population inversion in the monolayers to be 12-18 MW/cm2 (optically) or 2.5-4x105 A/cm2 (electrically).

physics.optics↗

arXiv2015

Exciton-dominated Dielectric Function of Atomically Thin MoS2 Films

We systematically measure the dielectric function of atomically thin MoS2 films with different layer numbers and demonstrate that excitonic effects play a dominant role in the dielectric function when the films are less than 5-7 layers thick. The dielectric function shows an anomalous dependence on the layer number. It decreases with the layer number increasing when the films are less than 5-7 layers thick but turns to increase with the layer number for thicker films. We show that this is because the excitonic effect is very strong in the thin MoS2 films and its contribution to the dielectric function may dominate over the contribution of the band structure. We also extract the value of layer-dependent exciton binding energy and Bohr radius in the films by fitting the experimental results with an intuitive model. The dominance of excitonic effects is in stark contrast with what reported at conventional materials whose dielectric functions are usually dictated by band structures. The knowledge of the dielectric function may enable capabilities to engineer the light-matter interactions of atomically thin MoS2 films for the development of novel photonic devices, such as metamaterials, waveguides, light absorbers, and light emitters.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Efficient Interlayer Relaxation and Transition of Excitons in Epitaxial and Non-epitaxial MoS2/WS2 Heterostructures

Semiconductor heterostructures provide a powerful platform for the engineering of excitons. Here we report the excitonic properties of two-dimensional (2D) heterostructures that consist of monolayer MoS2 and WS2 stacked epitaxially or non-epitaxially in the vertical direction. We find similarly efficient interlayer relaxation and transition of excitons in both the epitaxial and nonepitaxial heterostructures. This is manifested by a two orders of magnitude decrease in the photoluminescence and the appearance of an extra absorption peak at low energy region. The MoS2/WS2 heterostructures show weak interlayer coupling and can essentially act as atomicscale heterojunctions with the intrinsic bandstructures of the two monolayers largely preserved. They are particularly promising for the applications that request efficient dissociation of excitons and strong light absorption, including photovoltaics, solar fuels, photodetectors, and optical modulators. Our results also indicate that 2D heterostructures promise unprecedented capabilities to engineer excitons from the atomic level without concerns of interfacial imperfection.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Temperature Dependent Valley Relaxation Dynamics in Single Layer WS2 Measured Using Ultrafast Spectroscopy

We measured the lifetime of optically created valley polarization in single layer WS2 using transient absorption spectroscopy. The electron valley relaxation is very short (< 1ps). However the hole valley lifetime is at least two orders of magnitude longer and exhibits a temperature dependence that cannot be explained by single carrier spin/valley relaxation mechanisms. Our theoretical analysis suggests that a collective contribution of two potential processes may explain the valley relaxation in single layer WS2. One process involves direct scattering of excitons from K to K' valleys with a spin flip-flop interaction. The other mechanism involves scattering through spin degenerate Gamma valley. This second process is thermally activated with an Arrhenius behavior due to the energy barrier between Gamma and K valleys.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2013

Solar Superabsorption of Semiconductor Materials

We theoretically demonstrate the fundamental limit in volume for given materials (e.g. Si, a-Si, CdTe) to fully absorb the solar radiation above bandgap, which we refer as solar superabsorption limit. We also point out the general principles for experimentally designing light trapping structures to approach the superabsorption. This study builds upon an intuitive model, coupled leaky mode theory (CLMT), for the analysis of light absorption in nanostructures. The CLMT provides a useful variable transformation. Unlike the existing methods that rely on information of physical features (e.g. morphology, dimensionality) to analyze light absorption, the CLMT can evaluate light absorption in given materials with only two variables, the radiative loss and the resonant wavelength, of leaky modes, regardless the physical features of the materials. This transformation allows for surveying the entire variable space to find out the solar superabsorption and provides physical insights to guide the design of solar superabsorbing structures.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2013

Semiconductor solar superabsorber

Understanding the maximal enhancement of solar absorption in semiconductor materials by light trapping promises the development of affordable solar cells. However, the conventional Lambertian limit is only valid for idealized material systems with weak absorption, and cannot hold for the typical semiconductor materials used in solar cells due to the substantial absorption of these materials. Herein we theoretically demonstrate the maximal solar absorption enhancement for semiconductor materials and elucidate the general design principle for light trapping structures to approach the theoretical maximum. By following the principles, we design a practical light trapping structure that can enable an ultrathin layer of semiconductor materials,for instance, 10 nm thick a-Si, absorb > 90% sunlight above the bandgap. The design has active materials with one order of magnitude less volume than any of the existing solar light trapping designs in literature. This work points towards the development of ultimate solar light trapping techniques.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2013

Non-equilibrium Thermal Super-radiation of Real Materials

We elucidate the theoretically maximal thermal radiation power from real materials at a given temperature. Our results demonstrate that the thermal radiation from real materials may be larger than the blackbody emission in free space,and indicate that this is rooted in the high refractive index of the materials. The refractive index contrast between the materials and environment dictates the radiation of real materials genetically not under thermodynamic equilibrium, but on the other hand can give rise to a larger density of photonic modes than that of the blackbody. One key to maximize the thermal radiation is to minimize the impedance mismatch of the materials with environment. By following this principle, we present a design of a carbon core coated by a four-layer transparent shell with gradually changed refractive indexes that can emit > 30 times more power than the blackbody, which reasonably approaches the predicted radiation maximum.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2013

Leaky Mode Engineering: A General Design Principle for Dielectric Optical Antenna Solar Absorbers

We present a general principle for the rational design of dielectric optical antennas with optimal solar absorption enhancement: leaky mode engineering. This builds upon our previous study that demonstrates the solar absorption of a material with a given volume only dependent on the density and the radiative loss of leaky modes of the material. Here we systematically examine the correlation among the modal properties (density and radiative loss) of leaky modes, physical features, and solar absorption of dielectric antenna structures. Our analysis clearly points out the general guidelineS for the design of dielectric optical antennas with optimal solar absorption enhancement: a) using 0D structures; b) the shape does not matter much; c) heterostructuring with non-absorbing materials is a promising strategy; d) the design of a large-scale nanostructure array can use the solar absorption of single nanostructures as a reasonable reference.

physics.optics↗