arXiv subjects

Vincent Bouchiat

Publications and source records attributed to Vincent Bouchiat.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

Fermi resonance in the Raman spectrum of graphene

We report the observation of an intense anomalous peak at 1608 cm$^{-1}$ in the Raman spectrum of graphene associated to the presence of chromium nanoparticles in contact with graphene. Bombardment with an electron beam demonstrates that this peak is distinct from the well studied D$'$ peak appearing as defects are created in graphene; the new peak is found non dispersive. We argue that the bonding of chromium atoms with carbon atoms softens the out-of-plane optical (ZO) phonon mode, in such a way that the frequency of its overtone decreases to $2ω_{\rm ZO}\simω_{\rm G}$, where $ω_{\rm G}$=1585~cm$^{-1}$ is the frequency of the Raman-active E$_{\rm 2g}$ mode. Thus, the observed new peak is attributed to the 2ZO mode which becomes Raman-active following a mechanism known as Fermi resonance. First-principles calculations on vibrational and anharmonic properties of the graphene/Cr interface support this scenario.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Anharmonicity in Raman-active phonon modes in atomically thin MoS$_2$

Phonon-phonon anharmonic effects have a strong influence on the phonon spectrum; most prominent manifestation of these effects are the softening (shift in frequency) and broadening (change in FWHM) of the phonon modes at finite temperature. Using Raman spectroscopy, we studied the temperature dependence of the FWHM and Raman shift of $\mathrm{E_{2g}^1}$ and $\mathrm{A_{1g}}$ modes for single-layer and natural bilayer MoS$_2$ over a broad range of temperatures ($8 < $T$ < 300$ K). Both the Raman shift and FWHM of these modes show linear temperature dependence for $T>100$ K, whereas they become independent of temperature for $T<100$ K. Using first-principles calculations, we show that three-phonon anharmonic effects intrinsic to the material can account for the observed temperature-dependence of the line-width of both the modes. It also plays an important role in determining the temperature-dependence of the frequency of the Raman modes. The observed evolution of the line-width of the A$_{1g}$ mode suggests that electron-phonon processes are additionally involved. From the analysis of the temperature-dependent Raman spectra of MoS$_2$ on two different substrates -- SiO$_2$ and hexagonal boron nitride, we disentangle the contributions of external stress and internal impurities to these phonon-related processes. We find that the renormalization of the phonon mode frequencies on different substrates is governed by strain and intrinsic doping. Our work establishes the role of intrinsic phonon anharmonic effects in deciding the Raman shift in MoS$_2$ irrespective of substrate and layer number.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

In-plane magnetic domains and Néel-like domain walls in thin flakes of the room temperature CrTe$_2$ van der Waals ferromagnet

The recent discovery of magnetic van der Waals materials has triggered a wealth of investigations in materials science, and now offers genuinely new prospects for both fundamental and applied research. Although the catalogue of van der Waals ferromagnets is rapidly expanding, most of them have a Curie temperature below 300 K, a notable disadvantage for potential applications. Combining element-selective x-ray magnetic imaging and magnetic force microscopy, we resolve at room temperature the magnetic domains and domains walls in micron-sized flakes of the CrTe$_2$ van der Waals ferromagnet. Flux-closure magnetic patterns suggesting in-plane six-fold symmetry are observed. Upon annealing the material above its Curie point (315 K), the magnetic domains disappear. By cooling back down the sample, a different magnetic domain distribution is obtained, indicating material stability and lack of magnetic memory upon thermal cycling. The domain walls presumably have Néel texture, are preferentially oriented along directions separated by 120 degrees, and have a width of several tens of nanometers. Besides microscopic mapping of magnetic domains and domain walls, the coercivity of the material is found to be of a few mT only, showing that the CrTe$_2$ compound is magnetically soft. The coercivity is found to increase as the volume of the material decreases.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Room temperature 2D ferromagnetism in few-layered 1$T$-CrTe$_{2}$

Spin-related electronics using two dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials as a platform are believed to hold great promise for revolutionizing the next generation spintronics. Although many emerging new phenomena have been unravelled in 2D electronic systems with spin long-range orderings, the scarcely reported room temperature magnetic vdW material has thus far hindered the related applications. Here, we show that intrinsic ferromagnetically aligned spin polarization can hold up to 316 K in a metallic phase of 1$T$-CrTe$_{2}$ in the few-layer limit. This room temperature 2D long range spin interaction may be beneficial from an itinerant enhancement. Spin transport measurements indicate an in-plane room temperature negative anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) in few-layered CrTe$_{2}$, but a sign change in the AMR at lower temperature, with -0.6$\%$ at 300 K and +5$\%$ at 10 K, respectively. This behavior may originate from the specific spin polarized band structure of CrTe$_{2}$. Our findings provide insights into magnetism in few-layered CrTe$_{2}$, suggesting potential for future room temperature spintronic applications of such 2D vdW magnets.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Sensing ion channels in neuronal networks with graphene transistors

Graphene, the atomically-thin honeycomb carbon lattice, is a highly conducting 2D material whose exposed electronic structure offers an ideal platform for sensing. Its biocompatible, flexible, and chemically inert nature associated to the lack of dangling bonds, offers novel perspectives for direct interfacing with bioelements. When combined with its exceptional electronic and optical properties, graphene becomes a very promising material for bioelectronics. Among the successful bio-integrations of graphene, the detection of ionic currents through artificial membrane channels and extracellular action potentials in electrogenic cells have paved the road for the high spatial resolution and wide-field imaging of neuronal activity. However, various issues including the low signals amplitude, confinement and stochasticity of neuronal signals associated to the complex architecture and interconnectivity of neural networks should be still overcome. Recently, grain boundaries found in CVD graphene were shown to drastically increase the sensitivity of graphene transistors providing nanoscale sensing sites. Here we demonstrate the ability of liquid-gated graphene field effect transistors (G-FET) on which hippocampal neurons are grown for real-time detection of single ion channels activity. Dependence upon drugs and reference potential gating is presented and is found compatible with the nanoscale coupling of a few ion channels to graphene grain boundaries.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Coherence and density dynamics of excitons in a single-layer MoS$_2$ reaching the homogeneous limit

We measure the coherent nonlinear response of excitons in a single-layer of molybdenum disulphide embedded in hexagonal boron nitride, forming a $h$-BN/MoS$_2$/$h$-BN heterostructure. Using four-wave mixing microscopy and imaging, we correlate the exciton homogeneous and inhomogeneous broadenings. We find that the exciton dynamics is governed by microscopic disorder on top of the ideal crystal properties. Analyzing the exciton ultra-fast density dynamics using amplitude and phase of the response, we investigate the relaxation pathways of the resonantly driven exciton population. The surface protection via encapsulation provides stable monolayer samples with low disorder, avoiding surface contaminations and the resulting exciton broadening and modifications of the dynamics. We identify areas localized to a few microns where the optical response is totally dominated by homogeneous broadening. Across the sample of tens of micrometers, weak inhomogeneous broadening and strain effects are observed, attributed to the remaining interaction with the $h$-BN and imperfections in the encapsulation process.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Weakly Trapped, Charged, and Free Excitons in Single-Layer MoS2 in the Presence of Defects, Strain, and Charged Impurities

Few- and single-layer MoS2 host substantial densities of defects. They are thought to influence the doping level, the crystal structure, and the binding of electron-hole pairs. We disentangle the concomitant spectroscopic expression of all three effects and identify to what extent they are intrinsic to the material or extrinsic to it, i.e., related to its local environment. We do so by using different sources of MoS2 -- a natural one and one prepared at high pressure and high temperature -- and different substrates bringing varying amounts of charged impurities and by separating the contributions of internal strain and doping in Raman spectra. Photoluminescence unveils various optically active excitonic complexes. We discover a defect-bound state having a low binding energy of 20 meV that does not appear sensitive to strain and doping, unlike charged excitons. Conversely, the defect does not significantly dope or strain MoS2. Scanning tunneling microscopy and density functional theory simulations point to substitutional atoms, presumably individual nitrogen atoms at the sulfur site. Our work shows the way to a systematic understanding of the effect of external and internal fields on the optical properties of two-dimensional materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Gate-controlled reversible rectifying behaviour in tunnel contacted atomically-thin MoS$_{2}$ transistor

Atomically-thin 2D semiconducting materials integrated into van der Waals heterostructures have enabled architectures that hold great promise for next generation nanoelectronics. However, challenges still remain to enable their full acceptance as compliant materials for integration in logic devices. Two key-components to master are the barriers at metal/semiconductor interfaces and the mobility of the semiconducting channel, which endow the building-blocks of ${pn}$ diode and field effect transistor. Here, we have devised a reverted stacking technique to intercalate a wrinkle-free h-BN tunnel layer between MoS$_{2}$ channel and contacting electrodes. Vertical tunnelling of electrons therefore makes it possible to suppress the Schottky barriers and Fermi level pinning, leading to homogeneous gate-control of the channel chemical potential across the bandgap edges. The observed unprecedented features of ambipolar ${pn}$ to ${np}$ diode, which can be reversibly gate tuned, paves the way for future logic applications and high performance switches based on atomically thin semiconducting channel.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2017

Tunable transmission of quantum Hall edge channels with full degeneracy lifting in split-gated graphene devices

Charge carriers in the quantum Hall regime propagate via one-dimensional conducting channels that form along the edges of a two-dimensional electron gas. Controlling their transmission through a gate-tunable constriction, also called quantum point contact (QPC), is fundamental for many coherent transport experiments. However, in graphene, tailoring a QPC with electrostatic gates remains challenging due to the formation of p-n junctions below gate electrodes along which electron and hole edge channels co-propagate and mix, short-circuiting the constriction. Here we show that this electron-hole mixing is drastically reduced in high mobility boron-nitride/graphene/boron-nitride van-der-Waals heterostructures thanks to the full degeneracy lifting of the Landau levels, enabling QPC operation with full channel pinch-off. We demonstrate gate-tunable selective transmission of quantum Hall edge channels through the QPC, both in the integer and the fractional quantum Hall regimes. This gate-control of edge channel propagation in graphene van-der-Waals heterostructures opens the door to quantum Hall interferometry and electron quantum optics experiments in the integer and fractional quantum Hall regimes of graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

High-Yield Proximity-Induced Chemical Vapor Deposition of Graphene Over Millimeter-Sized Hexagonal Boron Nitride

We present a transfer-free preparation method for graphene on hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) crystals by chemical vapor deposition of graphene via a catalytic proximity effect, i.e. activated by a Cu catalyst close-by . We demonstrate the full coverage by monolayer graphene of half-millimeter-sized hexagonal boron nitride crystals exfoliated on a copper foil prior to growth. We demonstrate that the proximity of the copper catalyst ensures high yield with the growth rate estimated between of 2μm/min to 5μm/min . Optical and electron microscopies together with confocal micro-Raman mapping confirm that graphene covers the top surface of h-BN crystals that we attribute to be a lateral growth from the supporting catalytic copper substrate. Structural and electron transport characterization of the in-situ grown graphene present an electronic mobility of about 20, 000cm2/(V.s). Comparison with graphene/h-BN stacks obtained by manual transferring of similar CVD graphene onto h-BN, confirms the better neutrality reached by the self-assembled structures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Deviation from the normal mode expansion in a coupled graphene-nanomechanical system

We optomechanically measure the vibrations of a nanomechanical system made of a graphene membrane suspended on a silicon nitride nanoresonator. When probing the thermal noise of the coupled nanomechanical device, we observe a significant deviation from the normal mode expansion. It originates from the heterogeneous character of mechanical dissipation over the spatial extension of coupled eigenmodes, which violates one of the fundamental prerequisite for employing this commonly used description of the nanoresonators' thermal noise. We subsequently measure the local mechanical susceptibility and demonstrate that the fluctuation-dissipation theorem still holds and permits a proper evaluation of the thermal noise of the nanomechanical system. Since it naturally becomes delicate to ensure a good spatial homogeneity at the nanoscale, this approach is fundamental to correctly describe the thermal noise of nanomechanical systems which ultimately impact their sensing capacity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Phonon-Induced Transparency in Functionalized Single Layer Graphene

Herein, intervalley scattering is exploited to account for anomalous antiresonances in the infrared spectra of doped and disordered single layer graphene. We present infrared spectroscopy measurements of graphene grafted with iodophenyl moieties in both reflection microscopy and transmission configurations. Asymmetric transparency windows at energies corresponding to phonon modes near the Γ and K points are observed, in contrast to the featureless spectrum of pristine graphene. These asymmetric antiresonances are demonstrated to vary as a function of the chemical potential. We propose a model which involves coherent intraband scattering with defects and phonons, thus relaxing the optical selection rule forbidding access to ${\bf q} \neq$ Γ phonons. This interpretation of the new phenomenon is supported by our numerical simulations that reproduce the experimental features.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Strain superlattices and macroscale suspension of Graphene induced by corrugated substrates

We investigate the organized formation of strain, ripples and suspended features in macroscopic CVD-prepared graphene sheets transferred onto a corrugated substrate made of an ordered arrays of silica pillars of variable geometries. Depending on the aspect ratio and sharpness of the corrugated array, graphene can conformally coat the surface, partially collapse, or lay, fakir-like, fully suspended between pillars over tens of micrometers. Upon increase of pillar density, ripples in collapsed films display a transition from random oriented pleats emerging from pillars to ripples linking nearest neighboring pillars organized in domains of given orientation. Spatially-resolved Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy and electronic microscopy reveal uniaxial strain domains in the transferred graphene, which are induced and controlled by the geometry. We propose a simple theoretical model to explain the transition between suspended and collapsed graphene. For the arrays with high aspect ratio pillars, graphene membranes stays suspended over macroscopic distances with minimal interaction with pillars tip apex. It offers a platform to tailor stress in graphene layers and open perspectives for electron transport and nanomechanical applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Electric field-controlled rippling of graphene

Metal/graphene interfaces generated by electrode deposition induce barriers or potential modulations influencing the electronic transport properties of graphene based devices. However, their impact on the local mechanical properties of graphene is much less studied. Here we show that graphene near a metallic interface can exhibit a set of ripples self-organized in domains whose topographic roughness is controlled by the tip bias of a scanning tunneling microscope. The reconstruction from topographic images of graphene bending energy maps sheds light on the local electro-mechanical response of graphene under STM imaging and unveils the role of the stress induced by the vicinity of graphene/metal interface in the formation and the manipulation of these ripples. Since microscopic rippling is one of the important factors that limit charge carrier mobility in graphene, the control of rippling with a gate voltage may have important consequences in the conductance of graphene devices where transverse electric fields are created by contactless suspended gate electrodes. This opens also the possibility to dynamically control the local morphology of graphene nanomembranes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Collapse of superconductivity in a hybrid tin-graphene Josephson junction array

When a Josephson junction array is built with hybrid superconductor/metal/superconductor junctions, a quantum phase transition from a superconducting to a two-dimensional (2D) metallic ground state is predicted to happen upon increasing the junction normal state resistance. Owing to its surface-exposed 2D electron gas and its gate-tunable charge carrier density, graphene coupled to superconductors is the ideal platform to study the above-mentioned transition between ground states. Here we show that decorating graphene with a sparse and regular array of superconducting nanodisks enables to continuously gate-tune the quantum superconductor-to-metal transition of the Josephson junction array into a zero-temperature metallic state. The suppression of proximity-induced superconductivity is a direct consequence of the emergence of quantum fluctuations of the superconducting phase of the disks. Under perpendicular magnetic field, the competition between quantum fluctuations and disorder is responsible for the resilience at the lowest temperatures of a superconducting glassy state that persists above the upper critical field. Our results provide the entire phase diagram of the disorder and magnetic field-tuned transition and unveil the fundamental impact of quantum phase fluctuations in 2D superconducting systems.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2013

Time- and Space-Modulated Raman Signals in Graphene-based Optical Cavities

We present fabrication and optical characterization of micro-cavities made of multilayer graphene (MLG) cantilevers clamped by metallic electrodes and suspended over Si/Si02 substrate. Graphene cantilevers act as a semi-transparent mirrors closing an air-wedge optical cavity. This simple geometry implements a standing-wave optical resonator along with a mechanical one. Equal thickness interference fringes are observed in both Raman and Rayleigh backscattered signals with interfringe given by their specific wavelength.Chromatic dispersion within the cavity makes possible spatial modulation of graphene Raman lines and selective rejection of the silicon background signals. Electrostatic actuation of the multilayer graphene cantilever by gate voltage tunes the cavity length and induces space and time modulation of backscattered light including Raman lines. We demonstrate the potential of those systems for high sensitivity Raman measurements of generic molecular species grafted on multilayer graphene surface. The Raman signal of the molecular layer can be modulated both in time and in space in a similar fashion and show enhancement with respect to a collapsed membrane.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Suppression of Multilayer Graphene Patches during CVD Graphene growth on Copper

By limiting the carbon segregation at the copper surface defects, a pulsed chemical vapor deposition method for single layer graphene growth is shown to inhibit the formation of few-layer regions, leading to a fully single-layered graphene homogeneous at the centimeter scale. Graphene field-effect devices obtained after transfer of pulsed grown graphene on oxidized silicon exhibit mobilities above 5000 cm^2.V^-1.s^-1.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Electrical Control of the Superconducting-to-Insulating Transition in Graphene/Metal Hybrids

Graphene is a sturdy and chemically inert material exhibiting an exposed two-dimensional electron gas of high mobility. These combined properties enable the design of graphene composites either based on covalent or non- covalent coupling of adsorbates, or on multilayered structures. These systems have exhibited novel tunable electronic properties such as bandgap- engineering, reversible metal/insulating transition or supramolecular spintronics. Tunable superconductivity is expected as well, but experimental realization is lacking. Here, we show experiments based on me tal/graphene hybrid composites, enabling the control of proximity coupling of an array of superconducting nanoparticles onto a macroscopic graphene sheet. This material allows at low temperature to tune the superconductivity down to a strongly insulating state. It results from the combination of a proximity-induced superconductivity generated by the metallic nanoparticles array with the two-dimensional and tunable metallicity of graphene. The resulting hybrid material behaves, as a whole, like a granular 2D superconductor showing universal transition threshold and localization of Cooper pairs in the insulating phase. This experiment sheds light on the emergence of superconductivity in inhomogeneous superconduc- tors, and more generally it demonstrates the potential of graphene as a versatile building-block for the realization of novel superconducting materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗