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Epitaxial graphene quantum dots for high-performance terahertz bolometers

Nature Nanotechnology volume 11, pages 335–338 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Light absorption in graphene causes a large change in electron temperature due to the low electronic heat capacity and weak electron–phonon coupling1,2,3. This property makes graphene a very attractive material for hot-electron bolometers in the terahertz frequency range. Unfortunately, the weak variation of electrical resistance with temperature results in limited responsivity for absorbed power. Here, we show that, due to quantum confinement, quantum dots of epitaxial graphene on SiC exhibit an extraordinarily high variation of resistance with temperature (higher than 430 MΩ K−1 below 6 K), leading to responsivities of 1 × 1010 V W−1, a figure that is five orders of magnitude higher than other types of graphene hot-electron bolometer. The high responsivity, combined with an extremely low electrical noise-equivalent power (∼2 × 10−16 W Hz−1/2 at 2.5 K), already places our bolometers well above commercial cooled bolometers. Additionally, we show that these quantum dot bolometers demonstrate good performance at temperature as high as 77 K.

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Figure 1: Temperature dependence and electrical power characterization of graphene quantum dots.
Figure 2: Terahertz response of graphene dots.
Figure 3: Temperature dependence and effect of dot orientation with respect to the SiC steps.

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Acknowledgements

The work at Georgetown University was supported by the US Office of Naval Research (award no. N000141310865) and by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (DURIP FA9550-09-1-0434). Work at NRL was supported by the US Office of Naval Research. A.K.B. is grateful for an American Association of Engineering Education post-doctoral fellowship and K.M.D. is a National Research Council Fellow. The devices were fabricated in the Georgetown Nanoscience and Microtechnology Laboratory. The authors thank H. D. Drew, A. B. Sushkov, T. E. Murphy, M. S. Fuhrer, Y. Yang and R. Elmquist for discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Georgetown University, Washington, 20057, Washington DC, USA

    Abdel El Fatimy & Paola Barbara

  2. US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, 20375, Washington DC, USA

    Rachael L. Myers-Ward, Anthony K. Boyd, Kevin M. Daniels & D. Kurt Gaskill

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  1. Abdel El Fatimy
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  2. Rachael L. Myers-Ward
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  3. Anthony K. Boyd
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  4. Kevin M. Daniels
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  5. D. Kurt Gaskill
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  6. Paola Barbara
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Contributions

A.E.F. fabricated the devices and performed the transport measurements. A.K.B., K.M.D., R.L.M.-W. and D.K.G. synthesized and characterized the graphene on SiC. A.E.F. and P.B. designed the experiment and analysed the data. All authors contributed to the discussion of the results and preparation of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Abdel El Fatimy or Paola Barbara.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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El Fatimy, A., Myers-Ward, R., Boyd, A. et al. Epitaxial graphene quantum dots for high-performance terahertz bolometers. Nature Nanotech 11, 335–338 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.303

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