arXiv subjects

Zefei Wu

Publications and source records attributed to Zefei Wu.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Gate-tunable strong-weak localization transition in few-layer black phosphorus

Atomically thin black phosphorus (BP) field-effect transistors show strong-weak localization transition which is tunable through gate voltages. Hopping transports through charge impurity induced localized states are measured at low-carrier density regime. Variable-range hopping model is applied to simulate the charge carrier scattering behavior. In the high-carrier concentration regime, a negative magnetoresistance signals the weak localization effect. The extracted phase coherence length is power-law temperature dependent ($\sim T^{-0.48\pm0.03}$) and demonstrates electron-electron interactions in few-layer BP. The competition between the Strong localization length and phase coherence length is proposed and discussed based on the observed gate tunable strong-weak localization transition in few-layer BP.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Odd-integer quantum Hall states and giant spin susceptibility in p-type few-layer WSe2

We fabricate high-mobility p-type few-layer WSe2 field-effect transistors and surprisingly observe a series of quantum Hall (QH) states following an unconventional sequence predominated by odd-integer states under a moderate strength magnetic field. By tilting the magnetic field, we discover Landau level (LL) crossing effects at ultra-low coincident angles, revealing that the Zeeman energy is about three times as large as the cyclotron energy near the valence band top at Γ valley. This result implies the significant roles played by the exchange interactions in p-type few-layer WSe2, in which itinerant or QH ferromagnetism likely occurs. Evidently, the Γ valley of few-layer WSe2 offers a unique platform with unusually heavy hole-carriers and a substantially enhanced g-factor for exploring strongly correlated phenomena.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Charge Density Wave Phase Transition on the Surface of Electrostatically Doped Multilayer Graphene

We demonstrate that charge density wave (CDW) phase transition occurs on the surface of electronically doped multilayer graphene when the Fermi level approaches the M points (also known as van Hove singularities where the density of states diverge) in the Brillouin zone of graphene band structure. The occurrence of such CDW phase transitions are supported by both the electrical transport measurement and optical measurements in electrostatically doped multilayer graphene. The CDW transition is accompanied with the sudden change of graphene channel resistance at T$_m$= 100K, as well as the splitting of Raman G peak (1580 cm$^{-1}$). The splitting of Raman G peak indicats the lifting of in-plane optical phonon branch degeneracy and the non-degenerate phonon branches are correlated to the lattice reconstructions of graphene -- the CDW phase transition.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Type-controlled Nanodevices Based on Encapsulated Few-layer Black Phosphorus for Quantum Transport

We demonstrate that encapsulation of atomically thin black phosphorus (BP) by hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) sheets is very effective for minimizing the interface impurities induced during fabrication of BP channel material for quantum transport nanodevices. Highly stable BP nanodevices with ultrahigh mobility and controllable types are realized through depositing appropriate metal electrodes after conducting a selective etching to the BP encapsulation structure. Chromium and titanium are suitable metal electrodes for BP channels to control the transition from a p-type unipolar property to ambipolar characteristic because of different work functions. Record-high mobilities of 6000 $cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$ and 8400 $cm^2V^{-1}s^{-1}$ are respectively obtained for electrons and holes at cryogenic temperatures. High-mobility BP devices enable the investigation of quantum oscillations with an indistinguishable Zeeman effect in laboratory magnetic field.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Quantum Hall Effect in Ultrahigh Mobility Two-dimensional Hole Gas of Black Phosphorus

We demonstrate that a field effect transistor (FET) made of few layer black phosphorus (BP) encapsulated in hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) in vacuum, exhibts the room temperature hole mobility of 5200 $cm^2/Vs$ being limited just by the phonon scattering. At cryogenic tempeature the FET mobility increases up to 45,000 $cm^2/Vs$, which is eight times higher compared with the mobility obtained in earlier reports. The unprecedentedly clean h-BN/BP/h-BN heterostructure exhibits Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations and quantum Hall effect with Landau level (LL) filling factors down to v=2 in conventional laboratory magnetic fields. Moreover, carrier density independent effective mass m=0.26 m_0 is measured, and Lande g-factor g=2.47 is reported. Furthermore, an indication for a distinct hole transport behavior with up and down spin orientation is found.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Universal low-temperature Ohmic contacts for quantum transport in transition metal dichalcogenides

Low carrier mobility and high electrical contact resistance are two major obstacles prohibiting explorations of quantum transport in TMDCs. Here, we demonstrate an effective method to establish low-temperature Ohmic contacts in boron nitride encapsulated TMDC devices based on selective etching and conventional electron-beam evaporation of metal electrodes. This method works for most extensively studied TMDCs in recent years, including MoS2, MoSe2, WSe2, WS2, and 2H-MoTe2. Low electrical contact resistance is achieved at 2 K. All of the few-layer TMDC devices studied show excellent performance with remarkably improved field-effect mobilities ranging from 2300 cm2/V s to 16000 cm2/V s, as verified by the high carrier mobilities extracted from Hall effect measurements. Moreover, both high-mobility n-type and p-type TMDC channels can be realized by simply using appropriate contact metals. Prominent Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations have been observed and investigated in these high-quality TMDC devices.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Probing the Electronic States in Black Phosphorus Vertical Heterostructures

Atomically thin black phosphorus (BP) is a promising two-dimensional material for fabricating electronic and optoelectronic nano-devices with high mobility and tunable bandgap structures. However, the charge-carrier mobility in few-layer phosphorene (monolayer BP) is mainly limited by the presence of impurity and disorders. In this study, we demonstrate that vertical BP heterostructure devices offer great advantages in probing the electron states of monolayer and few-layer phosphorene at temperatures down to 2 K through capacitance spectroscopy. Electronic states in the conduction and valence bands of phosphorene are accessible over a wide range of temperature and frequency. Exponential band tails have been determined to be related to disorders. Unusual phenomena such as the large temperature-dependence of the electron state population in few-layer phosphorene have been observed and systematically studied. By combining the first-principles calculation, we identified that the thermal excitation of charge trap states and oxidation-induced defect states were the main reasons for this large temperature dependence of the electron state population and degradation of the on-off ratio in phosphorene field-effect transistors.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Band bending at interfaces between topological insulator Bi2Se3 and transition metals

Interfaces between exfoliated topological insulator Bi2Se3 and several transition metals deposited by sputtering were studied by XPS, SIMS, UPS and contact I-V measurements. Chemically clean interfaces can be achieved when coating Bi2Se3 with a transition metal layer as thin as 1 nm, even without capping. Most interestingly, UPS spectra suggest depletion or inversion in the originally n-type topological insulator near the interface. Strong band bending in the topological insulator requires careful material engineering or electric biasing if one desires to make use of the spin locking in surface states in the bulk gap for potential spintronic applications

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Observation of Valley Zeeman and Quantum Hall Effects at Q Valley of Few-Layer Transition Metal Disulfides

In few-layer (FL) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC), the conduction bands along the Gamma-K directions shift downward energetically in the presence of interlayer interactions, forming six Q valleys related by three-fold rotational symmetry and time reversal symmetry. In even-layers the extra inversion symmetry requires all states to be Kramers degenerate, whereas in odd-layers the intrinsic inversion asymmetry dictates the Q valleys to be spin-valley coupled. In this Letter, we report the transport characterization of prominent Shubnikov-de Hass (SdH) oscillations for the Q valley electrons in FL transition metal disulfide (TMDs), as well as the first quantum Hall effect (QHE) in TMDCs. Our devices exhibit ultrahigh field-effect mobilities (~16,000 cm2V-1s-1 for FL WS2 and ~10,500 cm2V-1s-1 for FL MoS2) at cryogenic temperatures. Universally in the SdH oscillations, we observe a valley Zeeman effect in all odd-layer TMD devices and a spin Zeeman effect in all even-layer TMD devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Negative Compressibility in Graphene-terminated Black Phosphorus Heterostructures

Negative compressibility generated by many-body effects in 2D electronic systems can enhance gate capacitance. We observe capacitance enhancement in a newly emerged 2D layered material, atomically thin black phosphorus (BP). The encapsulation of BP by hexagonal boron nitride sheets with few-layer graphene as a terminal ensures ultraclean heterostructure interfaces, allowing us to observe negative compressibility at low hole carrier concentrations. We explained the negative compressibility based on the Coulomb correlation among in-plane charges and their image charges in a gate electrode in the framework of Debye screening.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Fast Transfer-free Synthesis of High-quality Monolayer Graphene on Insulating Substrates by Simple Rapid Thermal Treatment

The transfer-free synthesis of high-quality, large-area graphene on a given dielectric substrate, which is highly desirable for device applications, remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we report on a simple rapid thermal treatment method for the fast and direct growth of high-quality, large-scale monolayer graphene on a SiO2/Si substrate from solid carbon sources. The stack structure of solid carbon layer/copper film/SiO2 is adopted in the RTT process. The inserted copper film does not only act as an active catalyst for the carbon precursor but also serves as a "filter" that prevents premature carbon dissolution, and thus, contributes to monolayer graphene growth on SiO2/Si. The produced monolayer graphene exhibits high carrier mobility of up to 3000 cm2 V-1s-1 at room temperature and standard half-integer quantum oscillations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

High quality sandwiched black phosphorus heterostructure and its quantum oscillations

Two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted great attention because of the rich physics and potential applications in next-generation nano-sized electronic devices. Recently, atomically thin black phosphorus (BP) has become a new member of the 2D materials family with high theoretical mobility and tunable bandgap structure. However, degradation of properties under atmospheric conditions and high-density charge traps in BP have largely limited its mobility (~400 cm2/Vs at room temperature) and thus restricted its future applications. Here, we report the fabrication of stable BN-BP-BN heterostructures by encapsulating atomically thin BP between hexagonal boron nitride (BN) layers to realize ultraclean BN-BP interfaces which allow a record-high field-effect mobility ~1350 cm2/Vs at room temperature and on-off ratios over 10^5. At low temperatures, the mobility reaches ~2700 cm2/Vs and quantum oscillations in BP 2D hole gas are observed at low magnetic fields. Importantly, the BN-BP-BN heterostructure can effectively avoid the quality degradation of BP in ambient condition.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Detection of Interlayer Interaction in Few-layer Graphene through Landau Level Spectroscopy

We demonstrate that surface relaxation, which is insignificant in trilayer graphene, starts to manifest in Bernal-stacked tetralayer graphene. Bernal-stacked few-layer graphene has been investigated by analyzing its Landau level spectra through quantum capacitance measurements. We find that in trilayer graphene, the interlayer interaction parameters were similar to that of graphite. However, in tetralayer graphene, the hopping parameters between the bulk and surface bilayers are quite different. This shows a direct evidence for the surface relaxation phenomena. In spite of the fact that the Van der Waals interaction between the carbon layers is thought to be insignificant, we suggest that the interlayer interaction is an important factor in explaining the observed results and the symmetry-breaking effects in graphene sublattice are not negligible.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

High-Quality BN-Graphene-BN Nanoribbon Capacitors Modulated by Graphene Side-gate Electrodes

High-quality BN-Graphene-BN nanoribbon capacitors with double side-gates of graphene are experimentally realized. Graphene electronic properties can be significantly modulated by the double side-gates. The modulation effects are very obvious and followed the metallic electrode behavior of numerical simulations, while the theoretically predicted negative quantum capacitance was not observed, possibility due to the over-estimated or weakened interactions between the graphene nanoribbon and side-gate electrodes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Probing the Electron States and Metal-Insulator Transition Mechanisms in Atomically Thin MoS2 Based on Vertical Heterostructures

The metal-insulator transition (MIT) is one of the remarkable electrical transport properties of atomically thin molybdenum disulphide (MoS2). Although the theory of electron-electron interactions has been used in modeling the MIT phenomena in MoS2, the underlying mechanism and detailed MIT process still remain largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrate that the vertical metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) heterostructures built from atomically thin MoS2 (monolayers and multilayers) are ideal capacitor structures for probing the electron states in MoS2. The vertical configuration of MIS heterostructures offers the added advantage of eliminating the influence of large impedance at the band tails and allows the observation of fully excited electron states near the surface of MoS2 over a wide excitation frequency (100 Hz-1 MHz) and temperature range (2 K- 300 K). By combining capacitance and transport measurements, we have observed a percolation-type MIT, driven by density inhomogeneities of electron states, in the vertical heterostructures built from monolayer and multilayer MoS2. In addition, the valence band of thin MoS2 layers and their intrinsic properties such as thickness-dependence screening abilities and band gap widths can be easily accessed and precisely determined through the vertical heterostructures.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗