Publications
Carbon Incorporation in MOCVD of MoS2 Thin Films Grown from an Organosulfide Precursor
CM Schaefer, JM Caicedo Roque, G Sauthier, J Bousquet, C Hébert, JR Sperling, A Pérez-Tomás, J Santiso, E del Corro, and JA Garrido. Chemistry of Materials; 22 (12): 4474–4487. 2021. 10.1021/acs.chemmater.1c00646.
With the rise of two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors and their prospective use in commercial (opto)electronic applications, it has become key to develop scalable and reliable TMD synthesis methods with well-monitored and controlled levels of impurities. While metal–organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) has emerged as the method of choice for large-scale TMD fabrication, carbon (C) incorporation arising during MOCVD growth of TMDs has been a persistent concern—especially in instances where organic chalcogen precursors are desired as a less hazardous alternative to more toxic chalcogen hydrides. However, the underlying mechanisms of such unintentional C incorporation and the effects on film growth and properties are still elusive. Here, we report on the role of C-containing side products of organosulfur precursor pyrolysis in MoS2 thin films grown from molybdenum hexacarbonyl Mo(CO)6 and diethyl sulfide (CH3CH2)2S (DES). By combining in situ gas-phase monitoring with ex situ microscopy and spectroscopy analyses, we systematically investigate the effect of temperature and Mo(CO)6/DES/H2 gas mixture ratios on film morphology, chemical composition, and stoichiometry. Aiming at high-quality TMD growth that typically requires elevated growth temperatures and high DES/Mo(CO)6 precursor ratios, we observed that temperatures above DES pyrolysis onset (≳600 °C) and excessive DES flow result in the formation of nanographitic carbon, competing with MoS2 growth. We found that by introducing H2 gas to the process, DES pyrolysis is significantly hindered, which reduces carbon incorporation. The C content in the MoS2 films is shown to quench the MoS2 photoluminescence and influence the trion-to-exciton ratio via charge transfer. This finding is fundamental for understanding process-induced C impurity doping in MOCVD-grown 2D semiconductors and might have important implications for the functionality and performance of (opto)electronic devices. This journal is © 2021 American Chemical Society.
Bias dependent variability of low-frequency noise in single-layer graphene FETs
Mavredakis N., Cortadella R.G., Illa X., Schaefer N., Calia A.B., Anton-Guimerà-Brunet, Garrido J.A., Jiménez D. Nanoscale Advances; 2 (11): 5450 – 5460. 2020. 10.1039/d0na00632g.
Low-frequency noise (LFN) variability in graphene transistors (GFETs) is for the first time researched in this work under both experimental and theoretical aspects. LFN from an adequate statistical sample of long-channel solution-gated single-layer GFETs is measured in a wide range of operating conditions while a physics-based analytical model is derived that accounts for the bias dependence of LFN variance with remarkable performance. LFN deviations in GFETs stem from the variations of the parameters of the physical mechanisms that generate LFN, which are the number of traps (Ntr) for the carrier number fluctuation effect (ΔN) due to trapping/detrapping process and the Hooge parameter (αH) for the mobility fluctuations effect (Δμ). ΔN accounts for an M-shape of normalized LFN variance versus gate bias with a minimum at the charge neutrality point (CNP) as it was the case for normalized LFN mean value while Δμ contributes only near the CNP for both variance and mean value. Trap statistical nature of the devices under test is experimentally shown to differ from classical Poisson distribution noticed at silicon-oxide devices, and this might be caused both by the electrolyte interface in GFETs under study and by the premature stage of the GFET technology development which could permit external factors to influence the performance. This not fully advanced GFET process growth might also cause pivotal inconsistencies affecting the scaling laws in GFETs of the same process. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Effect of channel thickness on noise in organic electrochemical transistors
Polyravas A.G., Schaefer N., Curto V.F., Calia A.B., Guimera-Brunet A., Garrido J.A., Malliaras G.G. Applied Physics Letters; 117 (7, 073302) 2020. 10.1063/5.0019693. IF: 3.597
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have been widely used as transducers in electrophysiology and other biosensing applications. Their identifying characteristic is a transconductance that increases with channel thickness, and this provides a facile mechanism to achieve high signal amplification. However, little is known about their noise behavior. Here, we investigate noise and extract metrics for the signal-to-noise ratio and limit of detection in OECTs with different channel thicknesses. These metrics are shown to improve as the channel thickness increases, demonstrating that OECTs can be easily optimized to show not only high amplification, but also low noise. © 2020 Author(s).
Distortion-Free Sensing of Neural Activity Using Graphene Transistors
Garcia-Cortadella R., Masvidal-Codina E., De la Cruz J.M., Schäfer N., Schwesig G., Jeschke C., Martinez-Aguilar J., Sanchez-Vives M.V., Villa R., Illa X., Sirota A., Guimerà A., Garrido J.A. Small; 16 (16, 1906640) 2020. 10.1002/smll.201906640. IF: 11.459
Low-frequency noise (LFN) variability in graphene transistors (GFETs) is for the first time researched in this work under both experimental and theoretical aspects. LFN from an adequate statistical sample of long-channel solution-gated single-layer GFETs is measured in a wide range of operating conditions while a physics-based analytical model is derived that accounts for the bias dependence of LFN variance with remarkable performance. LFN deviations in GFETs stem from the variations of the parameters of the physical mechanisms that generate LFN, which are the number of traps (Ntr) for the carrier number fluctuation effect (ΔN) due to trapping/detrapping process and the Hooge parameter (αH) for the mobility fluctuations effect (Δμ). ΔN accounts for an M-shape of normalized LFN variance versus gate bias with a minimum at the charge neutrality point (CNP) as it was the case for normalized LFN mean value while Δμ contributes only near the CNP for both variance and mean value. Trap statistical nature of the devices under test is experimentally shown to differ from classical Poisson distribution noticed at silicon-oxide devices, and this might be caused both by the electrolyte interface in GFETs under study and by the premature stage of the GFET technology development which could permit external factors to influence the performance. This not fully advanced GFET process growth might also cause pivotal inconsistencies affecting the scaling laws in GFETs of the same process. This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.
A First Evaluation of Thick Oxide 3C-SiC MOS Capacitors Reliability
Li F., Mawby P., Song Q., Perez-Tomas A., Shah V., Sharma Y., Hamilton D., Fisher C., Gammon P., Jennings M. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices; 67 (1, 8935512): 237 – 242. 2020. 10.1109/TED.2019.2954911. IF: 2.913
Despite the recent advances in 3C-SiC technology, there is a lack of statistical analysis on the reliability of SiO2 layers on 3C-SiC, which is crucial in power MOS device developments. This article presents a comprehensive study of the medium-and long-term time-dependent dielectric breakdowns (TDDBs) of 65-nm-thick SiO2 layers thermally grown on a state-of-the-art 3C-SiC/Si wafer. Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) tunneling is observed above 7 MV/cm and an effective barrier height of 3.7 eV is obtained, which is the highest known for native SiO2 layers grown on the semiconductor substrate. The observed dependence of the oxide reliability on the gate active area suggests that the oxide quality has not reached the intrinsic level. Three failure mechanisms were identified and confirmed by both medium-and long-term results. Although two of them are likely due to extrinsic defects from material quality and fabrication steps, the one dominating the high field (>8.5 MV/cm) should be attributed to the electron impact ionization within SiO2. At room temperature, the field acceleration factor is found to be ≈0.906 dec/(MV/cm) for high fields, and the projected lifetime exceeds 10 years at 4.5 MV/cm. © 1963-2012 IEEE.
Velocity Saturation Effect on Low Frequency Noise in Short Channel Single Layer Graphene Field Effect Transistors
Mavredakis N., Wei W., Pallecchi E., Vignaud D., Happy H., Garcia Cortadella R., Bonaccini Calia A., Garrido J.A., Jiménez D., ACS Applied Electronic Materials; 1 (12): 2626 – 2636. 2019. 10.1021/acsaelm.9b00604.
Graphene devices for analog and radio frequency (RF) applications are prone to low frequency noise (LFN) due to its up conversion to undesired phase noise at higher frequencies. Such applications demand the use of short channel graphene transistors (GFETs) that operate at high electric fields in order to ensure a high speed. Electric field is inversely proportional to device length and proportional to channel potential, so it gets maximized as the drain voltage increases and the transistor’s length shrinks. Under these conditions though, short channel effects like velocity saturation (VS) should be considered. The reduction of LFN data due to the VS effect at short channel GFETs operating at high drain potential is for the first time shown in the present work. Carrier number and mobility fluctuations have been proven to be the main sources that generate LFN in GFETs. While their contribution to the bias dependence of LFN in long channels has been thoroughly investigated, the way in which VS phenomenon affects LFN in short channel devices under high drain voltage conditions has not been well understood. In this paper we have proposed a physics-based analytical LFN model that works under both low and high electric field conditions. The implemented model is validated with experimental data from CVD grown back-gated single layer GFETs operating at gigahertz frequencies. The model accurately captures the reduction of LFN especially near the charge neutrality point because of the effect of the VS mechanism. Moreover, an analytical expression for the effect of contact resistance on LFN is derived. This contact resistance contribution is experimentally shown to be dominant at high gate voltages and is accurately described by the proposed model. The noise parameter related to LFN at contacts is found to have an exponential dependence with contact resistance, and to our knowledge, this is shown for the first time.