Three-terminal graphene single-electron transistor fabricated using feedback-controlled electroburning

Abstract

We report room-temperature Coulomb blockade in a single layer graphene three-terminal singleelectron transistor (SET) fabricated using feedback-controlled electroburning. The small separation between the side gate electrode and the graphene quantum dot results in a gate coupling up to 3 times larger compared to the value found for the back gate electrode. This allows for an effective tuning between the conductive and Coulomb blocked state using a small side gate voltage of about 1V. The technique can potentially be used in the future to fabricate all-graphene based room temperature singleelectron transistors or three terminal single molecule transistors with enhanced gate coupling.Due to its 2D character and high charge carrier mobility graphene is one of the most promising materials for future electronics. 1 Progress in chemical vapour deposition growth allows for the fabrication of graphene foils with sizes up to 750 mm or more. 2 Graphene can be patterned with dimensions down to a few nanometres using standard lithography techniques, 3,4 which opens up the possibility of scalable fabrication of graphene based nanoelectronics. 5 Graphene quantum dots have been successfully fabricated by means of lithography 3 and electroburning techniques 6,7 . The latter allows the formation of single electron transistors (SETs) with addition energies up to 1.6 eV, enabling room temperature

Controlled, Low‐Temperature Nanogap Propagation in Graphene Using Femtosecond Laser Patterning

“…However, because of the erratic nature of the electroburning process, improving the reproducibility and reliability of such devices is a major challenge for future applications. To address this issue, researchers have first shown that the nanogap width could be tuned by varying the air pressure or by feedback controlled electroburning . The path taken by the crack is a second aspect to consider.…”

“…To address this issue, researchers have first shown that the nanogap width could be tuned by varying the air pressure [21] or by feedback controlled electroburning. [2,13,[22][23][24][25][26][27] The path taken by the crack is a second aspect to consider. To tackle this issue, researchers generally use an "hourglass" design to create a constriction in the graphene flake where the current density is higher.…”

Thermal failure of carbon nanostructures

“…For instance, phase change materials can be introduced in the nanogap to make electronic switches [145]. Because the nanogaps can be a few nanometers wide, single molecules can also be inserted to make transistors [71,109,[146][147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154], DNA sequencers [155,156] or quantum dots [74,157] hence making graphene nanogap systems extremely important in the field of molecular electronics.…”

“…However, because of the erratic nature of the electro-burning process, improving the reproducibility and reliability of such devices is a significant challenge for future applications. To address this issue, researchers have first shown that the nano-gap width could be tuned by varying the air pressure [75] or by feedback controlled electro-burning [8,71,73,[109][110][111][112]161]. The path taken by the crack is a second aspect to consider.…”

“…Afterwards, a new voltage ramp starts again etc. This process allows to obtain a much higher yield of nanogaps widths between 1-3nm[8,71,73,[109][110][111][112].…”