Elastic and inelastic scattering in graphene studied by microwave transport and noise
Diffusions électronique élastique et inélastique dans le graphène étudiées par le transport micro-onde et le bruit.
Résumé
This thesis discusses the elastic and inelastic scattering in monolayer graphene, investigated by means of microwave carrier dynamics and noise. We study in a first part the high frequency properties of graphene field‐effect transistors on different substrates. Particular interest lies in the figures of merit like e.g. the transit frequency fT, defining the transistor's current amplification capabilities, and the transconductance gm representing its gate sensitivity. High values are obtained for both parameters in GHz measurements. We find in particular that these figures remain substantial even in miniaturized devices. We introduce top‐gated graphene field‐effect capacitors as a probe of the elastic scattering mechanisms in graphene. Employing similar techniques as in the transistor experiments, we are able to directly access the diffusion constant D and its dependence on carrier density. The latter is the signature of the scattering mechanism present in the graphene sheet. Our novel GHz experiments reveal a constant transport scattering time as a function of energy which is in disagreement with conventional theoretical predictions, but supports the random Dirac mass disorder mechanism. Furthermore, we study inelastic scattering of charge carriers by acoustic phonons in graphene which is among the first realizations of such an experiment in a genuine two‐dimensional geometry. A broadband cryogenic noise thermometry setup is used to detect the electronic fluctuations, the current noise, from which we extract the average electron temperature Te as a function of Joule power P. At high bias we find P∝ΣTe^4 as predicted by theory and which is the tell‐tale sign of a 2D phonon cooling mechanism. From a heat equation analysis of data in a broad bias range, we extract accurate values of the electron‐acoustic phonon coupling constant Σ. Our measurements point to an important effect of lattice disorder in the electron‐phonon energy relaxation.