Sensing Remote Bulk Defects Through Resistance Noise in a Large Area Graphene Field Effect Transistor

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that resistance noise in large-area graphene FETs on lightly doped substrates can detect remote bulk defects and charge fluctuations within the silicon substrate, revealing substrate influence on device noise characteristics.

Contribution

It shows that resistance noise in graphene FETs on lightly doped substrates can sense charge fluctuations inside the silicon bulk, unlike heavily doped substrates which screen such effects.

Findings

Remote substrate charge fluctuations affect graphene resistance.

Noise peaks near depletion regions indicate substrate defect sensing.

Screening effects depend on substrate doping level.

Abstract

Substrate plays a crucial role in determining transport and low frequency noise behavior of graphene field effect devices. Typically, heavily dope Si/SiO$_2$ substrate is used to fabricate these devices for efficient gating. Trapping-detrapping processes closed to the graphene/substrate interface are the dominant sources of resistance fluctuations in the graphene channel, while Coulomb fluctuations arising due to any remote charge fluctuations inside the bulk of the substrate are effectively screened by the heavily doped substrate. Here, we present electronic transport and low frequency noise characteristics of large area CVD graphene field effect transistor (FET) prepared on a lightly doped Si/SiO$_2$ substrate (N$_A$ $\sim$ 10$^{15}$cm$^{-3}$). Through a systematic characterization of transport, noise and capacitance at various temperature, we reveal that remote Si/SiO$_2$ interface can affect the charge transport in graphene severely and any charge fluctuations inside bulk of the silicon substrate can be sensed by the graphene channel. The resistance (R) vs. back gate voltage (V$_{bg}$) characteristics of the device shows a hump around the depletion region formed at the SiO$_2$/Si interface, confirmed by the capacitance (C) - Voltage (V) measurement. Low frequency noise measurement on these fabricated devices shows a peak in the noise amplitude close to the depletion region. This indicates that due to the absence of any charge layer at Si/SiO$_2$ interface, screening ability decreases and as a consequence, any fluctuations in the deep level coulomb impurities inside the silicon substrate can be observed as a noise in resistance in graphene channel via mobility fluctuations. Noise behavior on ionic liquid gated graphene on the same substrate exhibits no such peak in noise and can be explained by the interfacial trapping - detrapping processes closed to the graphene channel.