Date Available

12-7-2018

Year of Publication

2016

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School/Program

Physics and Astronomy

First Advisor

Dr. Douglas R. Strachan

Abstract

There is a great push towards reducing the size scale of both electronic components and machines. Two dimensional materials, such as graphene, are ideal candidates towards this push, as they are naturally atomically thin. In the case of nanoscale machines, the mechanical properties of the material surfaces become increasingly important. The use of laminar materials, such as graphene and MoS2, to modify the surface properties, yet maintain nanoscale topographical features, are very attractive. Towards this goal, we have investigated the surface properties of MoS2 at the nanoscale using Lateral Force Microscopy (LFM). In these investigations, we measure periodic frictional features with periodicity of ~ 4 nm. Ultrashort devices that incorporate atomically thin components have the potential to be the smallest electronics. Such extremely scaled devices are expected to show ballistic nonlinear behavior that could make them tremendously useful for ultra fast electronic applications. We report nonlinear electron transport in ultrashort channel graphene devices. We observe this nonlinear response up to room temperature, with zero applied magnetic field, on a readily accessible oxide substrate. This makes the nanogap technology we utilize of great potential for achieving extremely scaled high-speed atomically thin devices.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/ETD.2016.446

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