ISSN 10637761, Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, 2011, Vol. 112, No. 1, pp. 102107.

Pleiades Publishing, Inc., 2011.

102
1
1. INTRODUCTION
Graphenea single layer of carbon atoms densely
packed in a honeycomb structurewas recently first
isolated in its freestanding form [1, 2]. However, its
unusual material and physical properties have already
captured the interest of many researchers working in
condensedmatter physics [36]. This twodimen
sional material has a very high quality, is extremely
strong, exhibits ballistic electronic transport on the
micrometer scale at room temperature, and can be
chemically doped, and its conductivity can be con
trolled with an electric field [710]. Graphene has a
linear gapless spectrum, and therefore exhibits metal
lic conductivity even in the limit of a nominally zero
carrier concentration [1113]. At the same time, most
electronic applications rely on the presence of a gap
between the valence and conduction bands [1419].
The continuing enhancing of quantum electronic
devices poses new challenges to the semiconductor
industry for each new device generation [2022]. At
the mesoscopic scale, there are important quantum
effects, and the materials that worked well in previous
generation devices do not perform properly at the
nanoscale, and hence new materials need to be intro
duced [23]. Eventually, not only the materials [24] but
also the basic device operation principles and geome
tries need to be revised [25].
Superlattices have been used to filter the energy of
electrons [26, 27]. The band structure can be tuned by
varying the composition and thickness of the layers
[28]. In fact, superlattices are widely used in applica
tions that have nothing to do with their electronic
1
The article is published in the original.
properties [2931]. This is to improve the cleanliness
of material during growth [32]. The structures dis
cussed below are vertical, in the sense that the current
flows along the direction of growth or along the nor
mal to the interface [33]. The obvious way of introduc
ing carriers, used in classical devices, is to dope the
regions where electrons or holes are desired [34, 35].
The solution is the remote or modulation doping,
where the doping increases in one region, but the car
riers subsequently migrate to another [36]. Modula
tion doping has achieved two benefits: it has separated
electrons from their donors (holes from their accep
tors) to reduce scattering by ionized impurities, and
the electrons (holes) to two dimensions.
In this paper, we propose a new graphenebased
modulationdoped superlattice structure geometry
that consist of periodically arranged alternate layers:
InAs/graphene/GaAs/graphene/GaSb. Figure 1 illus
trates the graphene device tunneling structure: mono
layers of graphene are sandwiched between thin layers
of InAs at the bottom of the quantum device and thin
layers of GaSb at the top. In the middle of the pro
posed superlattice structure, gallium arsenide (GaAs)
is placed, which has a higher saturated electron veloc
ity and higher electron mobility and has some elec
tronic properties that are superior to those of silicon.
GaAs devices are relatively insensitive to heat and gen
erate less noise than silicon devices when operated at
high frequencies. GaAs layer is captured by two
graphene monolayers. Weak antilocalization, mobil
ity, and carrier density of the graphene allow consider
ing this geometry as an intrinsic semiconductor struc
ture, which we treat in the first section of our work.
GrapheneBased ModulationDoped Superlattice Structures
1
D. Bolmatov and ChungYu Mou
Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan
Department of Physics, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK
email: [email protected]
Received July 8, 2010
AbstractThe electronic transport properties of graphenebased superlattice structures are investigated. A
graphenebased modulationdoped superlattice structure geometry is proposed consisting of periodically
arranged alternate layers: InAs/graphene/GaAs/graphene/GaSb. The undoped graphene/GaAs/graphene
structure displays a relatively high conductance and enhanced mobilities at increased temperatures unlike the
modulationdoped superlattice structure, which is more steady and less sensitive to temperature and the
robust electrical tunable control on the screening length scale. The thermionic current density exhibits
enhanced behavior due to the presence of metallic (graphene) monolayers in the superlattice structure. The
proposed superlattice structure might be of great use for new types of wideband energy gap quantum devices.
DOI: 10.1134/S1063776111010043
SOLIDS
AND LIQUIDS
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS Vol. 112 No. 1 2011
GRAPHENEBASED MODULATIONDOPED SUPERLATTICE STRUCTURES 103
The weak van der Waals forces that provide the cohe
sion of multilayer graphene stacks do not always affect
the electronic properties of the individual graphene
layers in the stack.
Our idea here is to create two highconductivity
channels in the currentspreading graphene layers,
one of which is sandwiched by GaAs (gapped mate
rial) at the top and by InAs (electronsdoped region) at
the bottom, and the other is sandwiched by GaAs
(gapped material) at the bottom and by GaSb (holes
doped region) at the top. Electronic transport proper
ties of this structure are investigated in Section 2.
2. ELECTRONIC PROPERTIES
Pure semiconductors that are free from impurities
are called intrinsic semiconductors. Ideally, the intrin
sic conductivity is zero at 0 K and increases with tem
perature owing to the thermal excitation of electrons
from the valence to the conduction band. The elec
trons thus excited leave holes in the valence band. The
electric conductivity in these materials is due to both
the electrons in the conduction band and the holes in
the valence band. The conductivity in these materials
can be written as
(1)
where n
e
and n
h
are the electron and hole concentra
tions,
e
and
h
are the electron and hole mobilities
(200000 cm
2
/(Vs) in graphene, 3000000 cm
2
/(Vs) in
twodimensional electron gases), and e the charge of
the electron or the hole. The number of electrons
available in the conduction band depends on two fac
tors: the number of electronic energy levels available in
the conduction band and the extent to which these
energy states are occupied. The first is given by the
density of states and the second factor comes from the
FermiDirac distribution function.
If f (E) is the probability of finding the electron in
the energy state with energy E, then 1 f (E) is the
probability for the electron (or the hole) to not be
found in that state. The total number N of electrons is
given by
(2)
where E
i
is an energy level in the conduction band and
E
j
is an energy level in the filled band. In the case of an
intrinsic semiconductor, the total number of electron
states in the filled band is equal to N, that is,
n
e
e
e
n
h
e
h
, + =
N
1
E
i
( ) ( ) exp 1 +

=
+
1
E
j
( ) ( ) exp 1 +
,
j

1
j

N. =
Hence, it follows from Eq. (2) that
(3)
This shows the equality of the number of conduction
electrons (the lefthand side) and number of holes in
the filled band (the righthand side) in intrinsic semi
conductors,
(4)
The number of electrons in the conduction band (the
number of holes in the valence band) is obtained by
integrating the expression
Here, the origin of energy is taken at the top of the
filled band and the inequality E
g
kT is assumed.
Substituting the expressions for D(E) and f (E), we
then have
(5)
for electrons and
(6)
1
E
i
( ) ( ) exp 1 +

= 1
1
E
j
( ) ( ) exp 1 +



j

=
1
E
i
+ ( ) ( ) exp 1 +
.
j

n
e
n
h
. =
n
e
D E ( ) f E ( ) E, n
h
d
E
g

D E ( ) 1 f E ( ) ( ) E. d

0

= =
n
e
1

E E
g

v
F
e
( )
2

E
kT
exp E d
E
g

=
n
h
1

E ( )
v
F
h
( )
2

E +
kT
exp E d

0

=
+

GaSb
GaAs
InAs
Fig. 1. Tunneling structure of the graphene device. Two
monolayers of graphene are sandwiched between thin lay
ers of InAs at the bottom of the quantum device and thin
layers of GaSb at the top. GaAs is placed in the middle.
104
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS Vol. 112 No. 1 2011
BOLMATOV, CHUNGYU MOU
for holes. Now the electron and hole densities become
(7)
(8)
From Eqs. (7), (8), and (4), we can determine
exp(/kT) as
(9)
It therefore follows from (7) and (8) that
(10)
Equation (9) yields
(11)
The chemical potential in (11) lies in the vicinity of
the middle of the forbidden energy gap if the value of
log( / ) (where 1.11 10
6
m/s, 1.04
10
6
m/s in graphene monolayer and 1.10
10
6
m/s, 1.07 10
6
m/s in layered graphene) is of
the order of unity and the temperature is well below
E
g
/k. Hence, the relations E
g
/k T, E
g
kT and
kT are satisfied at ordinary temperature.
3. MODULATIONDOPED SUPERLATTICES
3.1. Neutrality
Because semiconductors contain mobile electric
charges, they tend to be electrically neutral, which is
to say they contain equal amounts of positive and neg
ative charge. It is interesting to see how large a non
neutral region can be, without the occurrence of large
potential differences.
We focus on graphenebased modulationdoped
superlattice structures. Inherently, InAs and GaSb are
doping layers in a superlattice structure; graphene
monolayers make the electric carriers highly mobile
and the GaAs layer is active. We propose a varying
potential that tends to a constant value, taken as zero.
In the constant potential, the hole (electron) density
n
0
is equal to the acceptor (donor) density A (without
losing the generality, we consider the ptype (hole)
carriers). Where the potential has charged to V, the
hole density is controlled by the MaxwellBoltzmann
relation
n
e
1

kT
v
F
e

2
E
g

kT
, exp =
n
h
1

kT
v
F
h

kT
. exp =

kT

exp
v
F
e
v
F
h

E
g
2kT

. exp =
n
e
n
h
1
v
F
e
v
F
h

kT

2
E
g
2kT



. exp = =

1
2
E
g
kT
v
F
e
v
F
h
. log + =
v
F
e
v
F
h
v
F
e
v
F
h
v
F
e
v
F
h
n n
0
eV
kT



exp =
(we recall assumption E
g
kT). In this case, the Pois
son equation is
(12)
where
0
is the permittivity and
s
is the relative per
mittivity of the active region.
This equation is unpleasant to solve in the general
case, but when 1, we can use the first two
terms in a series approximation for the exponential,
which gives
(13)
Equation (13) has a solution
(14)
where
is the Debye length. Equation (13) shows that a pertur
bation in the potential tends to increase or decrease
over distances of the order of
D
.
Major field changes occur over distances longer
than
D
. In what follows, we consider a superlattice
structure with different boundary conditions, taking
into account that graphene is quite different from most
conventional threedimensional materials: intrinsic
graphene is a semimetal or zerogap semiconductor.
We set x = 0 at the surface of the lower graphene
monolayer and assume the potential to be zero at
x = 0. The electron gas outside the metal is so rarefied
that it can be treated classically. Then V(x) increases as
x increases from 0 to infinity, and V() = because
n() = 0, and V'() = 0 because the electric field
should vanish as x . In terms of V, the Poisson
equation can be written as
(15)
Multiplying this by V' and integrating, and using the
boundary conditions given above, we obtain
(16)
whence
(17)
d
2
V
dx
2

0
n A ( ) =
=
n
0

eV
kT



exp 1


,
eV/kT
d
2
V
dx
2

e
2
n
0

0
kT
V. =
V V
0
x/
D
( ), exp =

D
kT
s

0
e
2
n
0
=
V''
e
2
n
0

eV
kT



. exp =
1
2
V' ( )
2 n
0
e
2

0
kT
eV
kT



, exp =
V'
2n
0
e
2

0
kT


1
2

eV
2kT



. exp =
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS Vol. 112 No. 1 2011
GRAPHENEBASED MODULATIONDOPED SUPERLATTICE STRUCTURES 105
Integrating this result once again yields
(18)
Because we have assumed that V(0) = 0, substituting
x = 0 in (18) yields the value of the integration con
stant
D
. Therefore, (18) can be rewritten as
whence
(19)
Substituting this in (12), we finally obtain
(20)
Electrical potential behavior is illustrated in Fig. 2.
3.2. Boltzmann Transport Equation
In the preceding section, we considered the case of
intrinsic semiconductors, where the number of elec
trons that are excited to the conduction band is equal
to the number of holes in the valence band. The elec
tric conductivity of electrons or holes in graphene
based superlattice structures due to the doping elec
trons (confined to one material, InAs) and holes (con
fined to the other, GaSb) can be investigated by con
sidering the Boltzmann transport equation
(21)
where x is the coordinate, k the momentum, f the dis
tribution function of carriers, and F the external force
acting on a particle. In the paradigm of graphene
based modulationdoped superlattice structures of
InAs/graphene/GaAs/graphene/GaSb, the interface
modes in graphene monolayers emerge as crucial fac
tors and the higherfrequency mode produces a sym
metric field in the GaAs well, which markedly
enhances the intrasubband scattering rate.
It suffices to find the current density in the form of
a term proportional to the electric field. Under the
assumptions of steadiness and uniformity, the Boltz
mann equation becomes
(22)
In order to determine an expression correct to the
first order in E, the distribution function f in the right
hand side may be replaced by the zeroth approxima
tion f
0
, i. e., the solution in the case where E = 0. Not
ing that f
0
is a function of E, we obtain
(23)
eV
kT

exp
2n
0
e
2

0
kT

1/2
x
D
+ ( ). =
eV
kT

exp
x

D
1, + =
V 2V
0
x
D
+

. log =
n x ( ) n
0

D
x
D
+

2
. =
f
t
v
f
x
F
f
k
+ +
f
t

coll
, =
eE
f
k

f f
0

. =
f f
0
f
0
E
ev + E. =
According to this expression, the electric current is
produced by a shift of the center of the Fermi distribu
tion. This is most clearly seen in the case where (k) =
vk:
The current density is obtained by multiplying
Eq. (23) by ev and integrating over all values of the
momentum,
(24)
where dk stands for dk
x
dk
y
and the factor 4 accounts
for the weight due to spin and valley. Therefore, the
components of the electric conductance can be writ
ten as
(25)
For the MaxwellBoltzmann distribution, the identity
holds, and the electric conductivity is approximated
on screening length scale by
(26)
The electric conductance behavior of graphenebased
superlattice structures is illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4.
3.3. Thermionic Current
At T = 0 K, electrons take the minimumenergy
configuration. The electrons in the donors fall into the
f f
0
ev + E ( ).
j e vf
4 k d
h
2

e
2 f
0

vv

E
4 k d
h
2
, = =
4e
2 v
2
3h
2

f
0

k d

=
=
4e
2
v
2
3kT
D E ( ) f E ( ) E. d
E
g

f
0

1
kT
f
0
, f
0

kT

, exp = =

4e
2
3h
2
kT
E
g
2kT



. exp =
Fig. 2. Electrostatic potential behavior in term of screening
length units. The dashed line (V
1
) is calculated from (14)
and the solid line (V
2
) is calculated from (19).
0
10
V/V
0
/
D
5 15 25
1.0
1.5
2.0
0.5
2.5
3.0
0.5
0 20 5
106
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS Vol. 112 No. 1 2011
BOLMATOV, CHUNGYU MOU
acceptor levels until the acceptors are ail filled; in this
configuration, the Fermi level must lie at the donor
level:
At sufficiently high temperatures, the electrons in the
filled band can be excited to the conduction band.
When the density of holes in the filled band and the
density of electrons in the conduction band become
much larger than the number of donors and acceptors,
the effects of donors and acceptors can be neglected,
and the sample shows characteristics similar to those
of an intrinsic semiconductor. In this case, the Fermi
level is in the middle of the energy gap E
g
and () =
0. At the temperatures between these extreme cases
(T = 0 and T = ), has a value between those given
above. Summarizing, we can say that the behavior of
is as follows: at T = 0 K, coincides with the donor
level. It increases with the temperature and then
approaches the middle of the gap between the conduc
tion band and the filled band. This is not exact, but is
sufficient for a qualitative discussion on the screening
length scale.
At a finite temperature, electrons having higher
energies than the work function W = eV at the upper
tail of the Fermi distribution can escape from the
graphene surface to the interior of the superlattice
structure in the direction normal to the surface. When
an appropriate potential difference is applied, it is pos
sible to collect all of the electrons escaping from the
metal (graphene). For a graphenebased modulation
doped superlattice structure, the electric current den
sity that occurs without any fluctuations in equilib
rium can be written as j = E, where E can be repre
sented as E = V(x)/x. In Fig. 5, we illustrate the ther
0 ( )
1
2
E
g
E
d
. =
mionic current density behavior, which was enhanced
due to a more realistic intrinsic electrostatic potential
in (19).
4. CONCLUSIONS
We investigated electric transport properties for
graphenebased modulationdoped superlattice struc
tures providing a qualitatively good description. We
have shown that slightly doped superlattice structures
based on graphene monolayers as a highconductivity
channels, in tuning to the point of intrinsictype struc
10
0 100
, 4e
2
/h
T, k/h
50 150
20
30
200 250
1
2
3
Fig. 3. The electric conductance behavior of the graphene
based superlattice structure shows enhanced mobilities at
increased temperature. Evenly increasing the energy gap to
the thermal energy (E
g
/kT 7, E
g
/kT 14, and E
g
/kT
28) shows a tendency to steady tunable electrical control
and optical confinement on a length scale greater than the
screening one.
1
0 10
, 4e
2
/h
T, k/h
5 15
2
3
4
20 25
1
2
3
Fig. 4. Electric conductance behavior (powerlow
dependence on temperature) for intrinsic undoped
graphene/GaAs/graphene (T
2
like behavior, 2),
undoped GaAs (T
3/2
like behavior, 1) and the
graphenebased modulationdoped superlattice struc
ture InAs/graphene/GaAs/graphene/GaSb (Tlike
behavior, 3). The undoped sample exhibits a relatively
high conductance, unlike the doped one, which is more
steady and less sensitive to the temperature, which is
more valuable for tunable wideband gap quantum
devices.
0.5
0 10
j, 4e
2
V/h
D
T, k/h
5 15
1.0
1.5
20
Fig. 5. The thermionic current density for different elec
trostatic potentials (the upper for (19) and the lower for
(14)) fixed on the screening length scale shows a tempera
ture dependence.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL AND THEORETICAL PHYSICS Vol. 112 No. 1 2011
GRAPHENEBASED MODULATIONDOPED SUPERLATTICE STRUCTURES 107
tures where carrier concentrations are relatively insen
sitive to heat, generate less noise when operated at
high frequencies, avoiding scattering effects on the
screening length scale. The thermionic current density
behavior is enhanced due to a more realistic intrinsic
electrostatic potential, which was calculated taking
the effect of metallic (graphene) monolayers into
account. The proposed structure might be of great use
for new types of wideband energy gap quantum
devices.
The authors are greatly indebted to J. Kwo and
M. Hong for the stimulating discussions and fruitful
suggestions. We acknowledge support from the
National Center for Theoretical Sciences in Taiwan.
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