Tunable terahertz absorption of ion gel-graphene hybrids based on the Salisbury effect.

The gate-tunable absorption properties of graphene make it suitable for terahertz (THz) absorbers. However, the realization of a graphene-based THz absorber faces challenges between the difficulty of patterning graphene for processing and the intrinsically low absorbance of graphene with the high electric field needed to change the conductivity of graphene. This report presents an electrically tunable graphene THz absorber where a single-layer graphene film and a gold reflective layer are separated by a polyimide (PI) dielectric layer to form an easily fabricated three-layer Salisbury screen structure. The carrier density of the graphene layer can be efficiently tuned by a small external electrical gating (-5V-5 V) with the assistance of an ion gel layer. The voltage modulation of the Fermi energy level (EF) of graphene was confirmed by Raman spectra, and the variation of the device absorbance was confirmed using a THz time-domain spectroscopy system (THz-TDS). The measurements show that the EF is adjusted in the range of 0-0.5 eV, and THz absorbance is adjusted in the range of 60%-99%. The absorber performs well under different curvatures, and the peak absorbance is all over 95%. We conducted further analysis of the absorber absorbance by varying the thickness of the PI dielectric layer, aiming to examine the correlation between the resonant frequency of the absorber and the dielectric layer thickness. Our research findings indicate that the proposed absorber holds significant potential for application in diverse fields such as communication, medicine, and sensing.

Interfacial Polarization Control Engineering and Ferroelectric PZT/Graphene Heterostructure Integrated Application.

Integration and miniaturization are the inevitable trends in the development of electronic devices. PZT and graphene are typical ferroelectric and carbon-based materials, respectively, which have been widely used in various fields. Achieving high-quality PZT/graphene heterogeneous integration and systematically studying its electrical properties is of great significance. In this work, we reported the characterization of a PZT film based on the sol-gel method. Additionally, the thickness of the PZT film was pushed to the limit size (~100 nm) by optimizing the process. The test results, including the remnant and leakage current, show that the PZT film is a reliable and suitable platform for further graphene-integrated applications. The non-destructive regulation of the electrical properties of graphene has been studied based on a domain-polarized substrate and strain-polarized substrate. The domain structures in the PZT film exhibit different geometric structures with ~0.3 V surface potential. The I-V output curves of graphene integrated on the surface of the PZT film exhibited obvious rectification characteristics because of p/n-doping tuned by an interfacial polarized electric field. In contrast, a ~100 nm thick PZT film makes it easy to acquire a larger strain gradient for flexural potential. The tested results also show a rectification phenomenon, which is similar to domain polarization substrate regulation. Considering the difficulty of measuring the flexural potential, the work might provide a new approach to assessing the flexural polarized regulation effect. A thinner ferroelectric film/graphene heterojunction and the polarized regulation of graphene will provide a platform for promoting low-dimension film-integrated applications.

Multilayer graphene-enabled structure based on Salisbury shielding effect for high-performance terahertz absorption.

Sandwich-type structure based on Salisbury screen effect is a simple and effective strategy to acquire high-performance terahertz (THz) absorption. The number of sandwich layer is the key factor that affects the absorption bandwidth and intensity of THz wave. Traditional metal/insulant/metal (M/I/M) absorber is difficult to construct multilayer structure because of low light transmittance of the surface metal film. Graphene exhibits huge advantages including broadband light absorption, low sheet resistance and high optical transparency, which are useful for high-quality THz absorber. In this work, we proposed a series of multilayer metal/PI/graphene (M/PI/G) absorber based on graphene Salisbury shielding. Numerical simulation and experimental demonstration were provided to explain the mechanism of graphene as resistive film for strong electric field. And it is important to improve the overall absorption performance of the absorber. In addition, the number of resonance peaks is found to increase by increasing the thickness of the dielectric layer in this experiment. The absorption broadband of our device is around 160%, greater than those previously reported THz absorber. Finally, this experiment successfully prepared the absorber on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. The absorber has high practical feasibility and can be easily integrated with the semiconductor technology to make high efficient THz-oriented devices.

An ultra-compact acoustofluidic device based on the narrow-path travelling surface acoustic wave (np-TSAW) for label-free isolation of living circulating tumor cells.

Obtaining highly purified intact living cells from complex environments has been a challenge, such as the isolation of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood. In this work, we demonstrated an acoustic-based ultra-compact device for cell sorting, with a chip size of less than 2 × 1.5 cm2. This single actuator device allows non-invasive and label-free isolation of living cells, offering greater flexibility and applicability. The device performance was optimized with different-sized polystyrene (PS) particles and blood cells spiked with cancer cells. Using the narrow-path travelling surface acoustic wave (np-TSAW), precise isolation of 10 µm particles from a complex mixture of particles (5, 10, 20 µm) and separation of 8 µm and 10 µm particles was achieved. The purified collection of 10 µm particles with high separation efficiency (98.75%) and high purity (98.1%) was achieved by optimizing the input voltage. Further, we investigated the isolation and purification of CTCs (MCF-7, human breast cancer cells) from blood cells with isolation efficiency exceeding 98% and purity reaching 93%. Viabilities of the CTCs harvested from target-outlet were all higher than 97% after culturing for 24, 48, and 72 h, showing good proliferation ability. This novel ultra-miniaturized microfluidic chip demonstrates the ability to sorting cells with high-purity and label-free, providing an attractive miniaturized system alternative to traditional sorting methods.

Nanoelectromechanical Temperature Sensor Based on Piezoresistive Properties of Suspended Graphene Film.

The substrate impurities scattering will lead to unstable temperature-sensitive behavior and poor linearity in graphene temperature sensors. And this can be weakened by suspending the graphene structure. Herein, we report a graphene temperature sensing structure, with suspended graphene membranes fabricated on the cavity and non-cavity SiO2/Si substrate, using monolayer, few-layer, and multilayer graphene. The results show that the sensor provides direct electrical readout from temperature to resistance transduction by the nano piezoresistive effect in graphene. And the cavity structure can weaken the substrate impurity scattering and thermal resistance effect, which results in better sensitivity and wide-range temperature sensing. In addition, monolayer graphene is almost no temperature sensitivity. And the few-layer graphene temperature sensitivity, lower than that of the multilayer graphene cavity structure (3.50%/°C), is 1.07%/°C. This work demonstrates that piezoresistive in suspended graphene membranes can effectively enhance the sensitivity and widen the temperature sensor range in NEMS temperature sensors.

Solar Light Management Enabled by Dual-Responsive Smart Window.

Smart windows with tunable optical properties for energy-saving and privacy protection applications are receiving increasing attention. However, current studies of smart windows either involve the use of complex material preparation processes and complex device systems for window switching or continue to face several challenges, including low luminous transmittance, low luminous and solar modulation, and narrow wavelength range management problems. Here, we report a dual-responsive smart window that achieves solar light management in the range of 200-2500 nm. This smart window is fabricated by combining a reversible thermoresponsive hydrogel that acts as a thermochromic material with a ZnO/Ag/ZnO multilayer film that acts as a transparent heater. The as-prepared smart window can modulate solar light over a range from ultraviolet to infrared and achieves active responses to high-temperature weather, with passive responses being produced through electrical heating. The smart window shows high luminous transmittance (81.7%) and high luminous modulation (81.6%), together with an outstanding solar modulation performance (62.9%). In outdoor demonstrations, the as-prepared smart window exhibited a promising temperature regulation ability under strong solar irradiation. Therefore, the proposed smart window promises to provide a simple and effective energy management technology for buildings.

Modulation of graphene THz absorption based on HAuCl4 doping method.

Graphene is an attractive material for terahertz (THz) absorbers because of its tunable Fermi-Level (EF). It has become a research hotspot to modulate the EF of graphene and THz absorption of graphene. Here, a sandwich-structured single layer graphene (SLG)/ Polyimide (PI)/Au THz absorber was proposed, and top-layer graphene was doped by HAuCl4 solutions. The EF of graphene was shifted by HAuCl4 doping, which was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman tests. The results showed that the EF is shifted about 0.42 eV under 100 mM HAuCl4 doping, the sheet resistance is reduced from 1065 Ω/sq (undoped) to 375 Ω/sq (100 mM). The corresponding absorbance was increased from 40% to 80% at 0.65 THz and increased from 50% to 90% at 2.0 THz under 100 mM HAuCl4 doping. Detailed studies showed that the absorption came from a sandwich structure that meets the impedance matching requirements and provided a thin resonant cavity to capture the incident THz waves. In addition, not only the absorber can be prepared simply, but its results in experiments and simulations agree as well. The proposed device can be applied to electromagnetic shielding and imaging, and the proposed method can be applied to prepare other graphene-based devices.

Influence of Structural Parameters on Performance of SAW Resonators Based on 128° YX LiNbO3 Single Crystal.

The seeking of resonator with high Q and low insertion loss is attractive for critical sensing scenes based on the surface acoustic wave (SAW). In this work, 128° YX LiNbO3-based SAW resonators were utilized to optimize the output performance through IDT structure parameters. Once the pairs of IDTs, the acoustic aperture, the reflecting grid logarithm, and the gap between IDT and reflector are changed, a better resonance frequency of 224.85 MHz and a high Q of 1364.5 were obtained. All the results demonstrate the structure parameters design is helpful for the performance enhancement with regard to SAW resonators, especially for designing and fabricating high-Q devices.

High-Performance Piezoelectric-Type MEMS Vibration Sensor Based on LiNbO3 Single-Crystal Cantilever Beams.

It is a great challenge to detect in-situ high-frequency vibration signals for extreme environment applications. A highly sensitive and robust vibration sensor is desired. Among the many piezoelectric materials, single-crystal lithium niobate (LiNbO3) could be a good candidate to meet the demand. In this work, a novel type of micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) vibration sensor based on a single crystalline LiNbO3 thin film is demonstrated. Firstly, the four-cantilever-beam MEMS vibration sensor was designed and optimized with the parametric method. The structural dependence on the intrinsic frequency and maximum stress was obtained. Then, the vibration sensor was fabricated using standard MEMS processes. The practical intrinsic frequency of the as-presented vibration sensor was 5.175 kHz, which was close to the calculated and simulated frequency. The dynamic performance of the vibration sensor was tested on a vibration platform after the packaging of the printed circuit board. The effect of acceleration was investigated, and it was observed that the output charge was proportional to the amplitude of the acceleration. As the loading acceleration amplitude is 10 g and the frequency is in the range of 20 to 2400 Hz, the output charge amplitude basically remains stable for the frequency range from 100 Hz to 1400 Hz, but there is a dramatic decrease around 1400 to 2200 Hz, and then it increases significantly. This should be attributed to the significant variation of the damping coefficient near 1800 Hz. Meanwhile, the effect of the temperature on the output was studied. The results show the nearly linear dependence of the output charge on the temperature. The presented MEMS vibration sensors were endowed with a high output performance, linear dependence and stable sensitivity, and could find potential applications for the detection of wide-band high-frequency vibration.

Integration Technology for Wafer-Level LiNbO3 Single-Crystal Thin Film on Silicon by Polyimide Adhesive Bonding and Chemical Mechanical Polishing.

An integration technology for wafer-level LiNbO3 single-crystal thin film on Si has been achieved. The optimized spin-coating speed of PI (polyimide) adhesive is 3500 rad/min. According to Fourier infrared analysis of the chemical state of the film baked under different conditions, a high-quality PI film that can be used for wafer-level bonding is obtained. A high bonding strength of 11.38 MPa is obtained by a tensile machine. The bonding interface is uniform, completed and non-porous. After the PI adhesive bonding process, the LiNbO3 single-crystal was lapped by chemical mechanical polishing. The thickness of the 100 mm diameter LiNbO3 can be decreased from 500 to 10 µm without generating serious cracks. A defect-free and tight bonding interface was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. X-ray diffraction results show that the prepared LiNbO3 single-crystal thin film has a highly crystalline quality. Heterogeneous integration of LiNbO3 single-crystal thin film on Si is of great significance to the fabrication of MEMS devices for in-situ measurement of space-sensing signals.

Reliable Fabrication of Graphene Nanostructure Based on e-Beam Irradiation of PMMA/Copper Composite Structure.

Graphene nanostructures are widely perceived as a promising material for fundamental components; their high-performance electronic properties offer the potential for the construction of graphene nanoelectronics. Numerous researchers have paid attention to the fabrication of graphene nanostructures, based on both top-down and bottom-up approaches. However, there are still some unavoidable challenges, such as smooth edges, uniform films without folds, and accurate dimension and location control. In this work, a direct writing method was reported for the in-situ preparation of a high-resolution graphene nanostructure of controllable size (the minimum feature size is about 15 nm), which combines the advantages of e-beam lithography and copper-catalyzed growth. By using the Fourier infrared absorption test, we found that the hydrogen and oxygen elements were disappearing due to knock-on displacement and the radiolysis effect. The graphene crystal is also formed via diffusion and the local heating effect between the e-beam and copper substrate, based on the Raman spectra test. This simple process for the in-situ synthesis of graphene nanostructures has many promising potential applications, including offering a way to make nanoelectrodes, NEMS cantilever resonant structures, nanophotonic devices and so on.

The Wafer-Level Integration of Single-Crystal LiNbO3 on Silicon via Polyimide Material.

In situ measurements of sensing signals in space platforms requires that the micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) sensors be located directly at the point to be measured and in contact with the subject to be measured. Traditional radiation-tolerant silicon-based MEMS sensors cannot acquire spatial signals directly. Compared to silicon-based structures, LiNbO3 single crystalline has wide application prospects in the aerospace field owing to its excellent corrosion resistance, low-temperature resistance and radiation resistance. In our work, 4-inch LiNbO3 and LiNbO3/Cr/Au wafers are fabricated to silicon substrate by means of a polyimide bonding method, respectively. The low-temperature bonding process (≤100 °C) is also useful for heterostructure to avoid wafer fragmentation results from a coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch. The hydrophilic polyimide surfaces result from the increasing of -OH groups were acquired based on contact angle and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy characterizations. A tight and defect-free bonding interface was confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. More importantly, benefiting from low-temperature tolerance and radiation-hardened properties of polyimide material, the bonding strength of the heterostructure based on oxygen plasma activation achieved 6.582 MPa and 3.339 MPa corresponding to room temperature and ultra-low temperature (≈ -263.15 °C), which meets the bonding strength requirements of aerospace applications.

Domain modulation in LiNbO3 films using litho piezoresponse force microscopy.

Domain engineering plays a pivotal role in the development of ferroelectric non-volatile memory devices. In this work, we mainly focus on the domain kinetic in ion-sliced single crystal LiNbO3 thin films under tip-induced electric fields using piezoresponse force microscope (PFM). Polarization reversal takes place when the electric fields are above threshold value (coercive voltage V c) of films. Besides, the dependence of domain dynamic on pulse duration and amplitude were investigated in detail, and specific local domain reversal (5 µm) was completed by the optimized poling condition. All the results reveal that tip-induced polarization reversal could be an effective way to domain engineering, which gives much more promising prospects regarding to the high density non-volatile ferroelectric memory devices.

Double Fano resonances in hybrid disk/rod artificial plasmonic molecules based on dipole-quadrupole coupling.

Fano resonance can be achieved by the destructive interference between a superradiant bright mode and a subradiant dark mode. A variety of artificial plasmonic oligomers have been fabricated to generate Fano resonance for its extensive applications. However, the Fano resonance in plasmonic oligomer systems comes from the interaction of all metal particles, which greatly limits the tunability of the Fano resonance. Besides, only a single Fano resonance is supported by many existing plasmonic oligomers, while multiple Fano resonances mostly occur in complex and multilayer structures, whose fabrication is greatly challenging. Here, a simple asymmetric plasmonic molecule consisting of a central metal disk and two side-coupled parallel metal rods is demonstrated. The simulation and experimental results clearly show that double Fano resonances appear in the transmission spectrum. In addition, the two Fano peaks can be independently tuned and single/double Fano peak switching can be achieved by changing one rod length or the gap distances between the rods and the disk. The modulation method is simple and effective, which greatly increases the tunability of the structure. The proposed asymmetric artificial plasmonic molecule can have applications in multi-channel optical switches, filters and biosensors. Moreover, the controllable plasmonic field intensity in the gap between the disk and rods also provides a new control means for plasmon-induced photocatalytic reactions and biosynthesis.

Kirigami-inspired multiscale patterning of metallic structures via predefined nanotrench templates.

Reliable fabrication of multiscale metallic patterns with precise geometry and size at both the nanoscale and macroscale is of importance for various applications in electronic and optical devices. The existing fabrication processes, which usually involve film deposition in combination with electron-beam patterning, are either time-consuming or offer limited precision. Inspired by the kirigami, an ancient handicraft art of paper cutting, this work demonstrates an electron-beam patterning process for multiscale metallic structures with significantly enhanced efficiency and precision. Similar to the kirigami, in which the final pattern is defined by cutting its contour in a paper and then removing the unwanted parts, we define the target multiscale structures by first creating nanotrench contours in a metallic film via an electron-beam-based process and then selectively peeling the separated film outside the contours. Compared with the conventional approach, which requires the exposure of the whole pattern, much less exposure area is needed for nanotrench contours, thus enabling reduced exposure time and enhanced geometric precision due to the mitigated proximity effect. A theoretical model based on interface mechanics allows a clear understanding of the nanotrench-assisted selective debonding behaviour in the peeling process. By using this fabrication process, multiscale metallic structures with sub-10-nm up to submillimetre features can be reliably achieved, having potential applications for anti-counterfeiting and gap-plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy.

Thickness Dependence of Ferroelectric and Optical Properties in Pb(Zr0.53Ti0.47)O3 Thin Films.

As a promising functional material, ferroelectric Pb(ZrxTi1-x)O3 (PZT) are widely used in many optical and electronic devices. Remarkably, as the film thickness decreases, the materials' properties deviate gradually from those of solid materials. In this work, multilayered PZT thin films with different thicknesses are fabricated by Sol-Gel technique. The thickness effect on its microstructure, ferroelectric, and optical properties has been studied. It is found that the surface quality and the crystalline structure vary with the film thickness. Moreover, the increasing film thickness results in a significant increase in remnant polarization, due to the interfacial layer effect. Meanwhile, the dielectric loss and tunability are strongly dependent on thickness. In terms of optical properties, the refractive index of PZT films increase with the increasing thickness, and the photorefractive effect are also influenced by the thickness, which could all be related to the film density and photovoltaic effect. Besides, the band gap decreases as the film thickness increases. This work is significant for the application of PZT thin film in optical and optoelectronic devices.

Short channel monolayer MoS2 field-effect transistors defined by SiO x nanofins down to 20 nm.

Layered semiconductors such as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) with proper bandgaps complement the zero-bandgap drawback of graphene, demonstrating great potential for post-silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology. Among the TMD family, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) is highly attractive for its atomically thin body, large bandgap and decent mechanical and chemical stability. However, current nanofabrication techniques hardly satisfy the requirements of short channel and convenient preparation simultaneously. Here, we demonstrate a simple and effective approach to fabricate short channel chemical vapor deposition (CVD) monolayer MoS2 field-effect transistors (FET) with channel length down to 20 nm. Electron-beam lithography based on high-resolution negative-tone hydrogen silsesquioxane electron resists were applied to create 20 nm wide SiO x lines, defining the short channel length. The 20 nm MoS2 FET displays ON-sate current in excess of 100 µA µm-1. The corresponding current ON/OFF ratio at room temperature reaches 105. We carefully studied the short channel effect of as-fabricated MoS2 FETs. Combining with the large-scale growth of CVD method, our results will pave a way for short channel device applications based on atomically thin two-dimensional semiconductors.

Direct electron-beam patterning of transferrable plasmonic gold nanoparticles using a HAuCl4/PVP composite resist.

Reliable fabrication of gold nanoparticles with desirable size, geometry and spatial arrangement is essential for plasmonic applications. A common fabrication flow usually involves electron-beam lithography and a vacuum-evaporation-based lift-off process or etching. In this work, we evaluate an alternative approach to directly fabricate a plasmonic gold nanoparticle array without involving the vacuum evaporation process by using a chloroauric acid/poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) (HAuCl4/PVP) hybrid as a functional electron-beam resist. Systematic experiments were conducted to investigate the patterning behaviors in the fabrication process. With the optimized fabrication parameters, we show that the HAuCl4/PVP composite resist has a high patterning resolution and pure gold nanoparticles with tens of nanometers can be obtained after an annealing-based pyrolysis process. More particularly, compared to the patterned plasmonic gold nanoparticles obtained by conventional methods, the gold nanoparticles fabricated by our method can be transferred to soft substrates due to the absence of an adhesion layer, enabling various potential applications in flexible and stretchable optics. As an example, we demonstrated that the transferred gold nanoparticle array can be conformably assembled onto a flat gold surface to form a particle-on-film structure for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) applications.

Transient security transistors self-supported on biodegradable natural-polymer membranes for brain-inspired neuromorphic applications.

Transient electronics, a new generation of electronics that can physically or functionally vanish on demand, are very promising for future "green" security biocompatible electronics. At the same time, hardware implementation of biological synapses is highly desirable for emerging brain-like neuromorphic computational systems that could look beyond the conventional von Neumann architecture. Here, a hardware-security physically-transient bidirectional artificial synapse network based on a dual in-plane-gate Al-Zn-O neuromorphic transistor was fabricated on free-standing laterally-coupled biopolymer electrolyte membranes (sodium alginate). The excitatory postsynaptic current, paired-pulse-facilitation, and temporal filtering characteristics from high-pass to low-pass transition were successfully mimicked. More importantly, bidirectional dynamic spatiotemporal learning rules and neuronal arithmetic were also experimentally demonstrated using two lateral in-plane gates as the presynaptic inputs. Most interestingly, excellent physically-transient behavior could be achieved with a superfast water-soluble speed of only ∼120 seconds. This work represents a significant step towards future hardware-security transient biocompatible intelligent electronic systems.

Direct patterning of highly-conductive graphene@copper composites using copper naphthenate as a resist for graphene device applications.

We report an electron-beam lithography process to directly fabricate graphene@copper composite patterns without involving metal deposition, lift-off and etching processes using copper naphthenate as a high-resolution negative-tone resist. As a commonly used industrial painting product, copper naphthenate is extremely cheap with a long shelf time but demonstrates an unexpected patterning resolution better than 10 nm. With appropriate annealing under a hydrogen atmosphere, the produced graphene@copper composite patterns show high conductivity of ∼400 S cm-1. X-ray diffraction, conformal Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to analyze the chemical composition of the final patterns. With the properties of high resolution and high conductivity, the patterned graphene@copper composites could be used as conductive pads and interconnects for graphene electronic devices with ohmic contacts. Compared to common fabrication processes involving metal evaporation and lift-off steps, this pattern-transfer-free fabrication process using copper naphthenate resist is direct and simple but allows comparable device performance in practical device applications.