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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Adiabatic two-qubit gates in capacitively coupled quantum dot hybrid qubits

Abstract The ability to tune qubits to flat points in their energy dispersions (“sweet spots”) is an important tool for mitigating the effects of charge noise and dephasing in solid-state devices. However, the number of derivatives that must be simultaneously set to zero grows exponentially with the number of coupled qubits, making the task untenable for as few as two qubits. This is a particular problem for adiabatic gates, due to their slower speeds. Here, we propose an adiabatic two-qubit gate for quantum dot hybrid qubits, based on the tunable, electrostatic coupling between distinct charge configurations. We confirm the absence of a conventional sweet spot, but show that controlled-Z (CZ) gates can nonetheless be optimized to have fidelities of ~99% for a typical level of quasistatic charge noise ( σ ε ≃ 1 μeV). We then develop the concept of a dynamical sweet spot (DSS), for which the time-averaged energy derivatives are set to zero, and identify a simple pulse sequence that achieves an approximate DSS for a CZ gate, with a 5× improvement in the fidelity. We observe that the results depend on the number of tunable parameters in the pulse sequence, and speculate that a more elaborate sequence could potentially attain a true DSS.

Frees, Adam (ORCID:0000000324711096)↗
DOE OSTI2015

Coupling capacitance between double quantum dots tunable by the number of electrons in Si quantum dots

Tunability of capacitive coupling in the Si double-quantum-dot system is discussed by changing the number of electrons in quantum dots (QDs), in which the QDs are fabricated using pattern-dependent oxidation (PADOX) of a Si nanowire and multi-fine-gate structure. A single QD formed by PADOX is divided into multiple QDs by additional oxidation through the gap between the fine gates. When the number of electrons occupying the QDs is large, the coupling capacitance increases gradually and almost monotonically with the number of electrons. This phenomenon is attributed to the gradual growth in the effective QD size due to the increase in the number of electrons in the QDs. On the other hand, when the number of electrons changes in the few-electron regime, the coupling capacitance irregularly changes. This irregularity can be observed even up to 40 electrons. This behavior is attributable the rough structure of Si nano-dots made by PADOX. This roughness is thought to induce complicated change in the electron wave function when an electron is added to or subtracted from a QD.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Full-range electrical characteristics of WS{sub 2} transistors

We fabricated transistors formed by few layers to bulk single crystal WS{sub 2} to quantify the factors governing charge transport. We established a capacitor network to analyze the full-range electrical characteristics of the channel, highlighting the role of quantum capacitance and interface trap density. We find that the transfer characteristics are mainly determined by the interplay between quantum and oxide capacitances. In the OFF-state, the interface trap density (<10{sup 12} cm{sup –2}) is a limiting factor for the subthreshold swing. Furthermore, the superior crystalline quality and the low interface trap density enabled the subthreshold swing to approach the theoretical limit on a back-gated device on SiO{sub 2}/Si substrate.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Transistor roadmap projection using predictive full-band atomistic modeling

In this letter, a full band atomistic quantum transport tool is used to predict the performance of double gate metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) over the next 15 years for International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). As MOSFET channel lengths scale below 20 nm, the number of atoms in the device cross-sections becomes finite. At this scale, quantum mechanical effects play an important role in determining the device characteristics. These quantum effects can be captured with the quantum transport tool. Critical results show the ON-current degradation as a result of geometry scaling, which is in contrast to previous ITRS compact model calculations. Geometric scaling has significant effects on the ON-current by increasing source-to-drain (S/D) tunneling and altering the electronic band structure. By shortening the device gate length from 20 nm to 5.1 nm, the ratio of S/D tunneling current to the overall subthreshold OFF-current increases from 18% to 98%. Despite this ON-current degradation by scaling, the intrinsic device speed is projected to increase at a rate of at least 8% per year as a result of the reduction of the quantum capacitance.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Side-gate modulation effects on high-quality BN-Graphene-BN nanoribbon capacitors

High-quality BN-Graphene-BN nanoribbon capacitors with double side-gates of graphene have been experimentally realized. The double side-gates can effectively modulate the electronic properties of graphene nanoribbon capacitors. By applying anti-symmetric side-gate voltages, we observed significant upward shifting and flattening of the V-shaped capacitance curve near the charge neutrality point. Symmetric side-gate voltages, however, only resulted in tilted upward shifting along the opposite direction of applied gate voltages. These modulation effects followed the behavior of graphene nanoribbons predicted theoretically for metallic side-gate modulation. The negative quantum capacitance phenomenon predicted by numerical simulations for graphene nanoribbons modulated by graphene side-gates was not observed, possibly due to the weakened interactions between the graphene nanoribbon and side-gate electrodes caused by the Ga{sup +} beam etching process.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2017

Electronic properties of a Weyl semimetal in crossed magnetic and electric fields

The study of Weyl semimetals is one of the most challenging problems of condensed matter physics. These materials exhibit interesting properties in a magnetic field. In this work, we investigate the Landau bands and the density of states (DOS) oscillations in a Weyl semimetal in crossed magnetic and electric fields. An expression is obtained for the energy spectrum of the system using the following three different methods: an algebraic approach, a Lorentz shift-based approach, and a quasi-classical approach. It is interesting that the energy spectrum calculated in terms of the quasi-classical approach coincides with the spectrum obtained using the microscopic approaches. An electric field is shown to change the Landau bands radically. In addition, the classical motion of a three-dimensional Dirac fermion in crossed fields is studied. In the case of a Dirac spectrum, the longitudinal (with respect to magnetic field) component of momentum (p{sub z} ǁ H) is shown to be an oscillating function of the magnetic field. When the electric field is v⊥H/c, the Landau levels collapse and the motion becomes fully linear in an unusual manner. In this case, the wavefunction of bulk states vanishes and only states with p{sub z} = 0 are retained. An electric field affects the character of DOS oscillations. An analytical expression is obtained for the quantum capacitance in crossed fields in the cases of strong and weak electric fields. Thus, an electric field is an additional parameter for adjusting the diamagnetic properties of Weyl semimetals.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Superior dielectric properties for template assisted grown (100) oriented Gd{sub 2}O{sub 3} thin films on Si(100)

We report about the single crystalline growth and dielectric properties of Gd{sub 2}O{sub 3}(100) thin films on Si(100) surface. Using a two step molecular beam epitaxy growth process, we demonstrate that controlled engineering of the oxide/Si interface is a key step to achieve the atypical (100) oriented growth of Gd{sub 2}O{sub 3}. Unusually, high dielectric constant values (∼23–27) were extracted from capacitance voltage measurements. Such effect can be understood in terms of a two dimensional charge layer at the Gd{sub 2}O{sub 3}/Si interface (W. Sitaputra and R. Tsu, Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 222903 (2012)) which can influence the dielectric properties of the oxide layer by forming an additional negative quantum capacitance.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Resonant plasmonic terahertz detection in vertical graphene-base hot-electron transistors

We analyze dynamic properties of vertical graphene-base hot-electron transistors (GB-HETs) and consider their operation as detectors of terahertz (THz) radiation using the developed device model. The GB-HET model accounts for the tunneling electron injection from the emitter, electron propagation across the barrier layers with the partial capture into the GB, and the self-consistent oscillations of the electric potential and the hole density in the GB (plasma oscillations), as well as the quantum capacitance and the electron transit-time effects. Using the proposed device model, we calculate the responsivity of GB-HETs operating as THz detectors as a function of the signal frequency, applied bias voltages, and the structural parameters. The inclusion of the plasmonic effect leads to the possibility of the GB-HET operation at the frequencies significantly exceeding those limited by the characteristic RC-time. It is found that the responsivity of GB-HETs with a sufficiently perfect GB exhibits sharp resonant maxima in the THz range of frequencies associated with the excitation of plasma oscillations. The positions of these maxima are controlled by the applied bias voltages. The GB-HETs can compete with and even surpass other plasmonic THz detectors.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

An effective approach for the minimization of errors in capacitance-voltage carrier profiling of quantum structures

Experimental capacitance–voltage (C-V) profiling of semiconductor heterojunctions and quantum wells has remained ever important and relevant. The apparent carrier distributions (ACDs) thus obtained reveal the carrier depletions, carrier peaks and their positions, in and around the quantum structures. Inevitable errors, encountered in such measurements, are the deviations of the peak concentrations of the ACDs and their positions, from the actual carrier peaks obtained from quantum mechanical computations with the fundamental parameters. In spite of the very wide use of the C-V method, comprehensive discussions on the qualitative and quantitative nature of the errors remain wanting. The errors are dependent on the fundamental parameters, the temperature of measurements, the Debye length, and the series resistance. In this paper, the errors have been studied with doping concentration, band offset, and temperature. From this study, a rough estimate may be drawn about the error. It is seen that the error in the position of the ACD peak decreases at higher doping, higher band offset, and lower temperature, whereas the error in the peak concentration changes in a strange fashion. A completely new method is introduced, for derivation of the carrier profiles from C-V measurements on quantum structures to minimize errors which are inevitable in the conventional formulation.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Four-Terminal Electrochemistry: A Back-Gate Controls the Electrochemical Potential of a 2D Working Electrode

We demonstrate that ultrathin semiconductor working electrodes integrated into metal–insulator–semiconductor (MIS) stacks are an enabling platform for understanding non-Faradaic semiconductor electrochemistry. Furthermore, 5 nm thick ZnO electrodes were deposited on 30 nm HfO 2 dielectric on a Pd “gate” electrode. Application of a bias V G between the Pd gate and the ZnO electrode causes electrons to accumulate in the ZnO layer as measured by recording the in-plane sheet conductance. By contacting the top surface of the ZnO layer with the electrolyte in a conventional three-electrode electrochemical cell, we show that the gate voltage V G modulates the electrochemical potential V ZnO of the ZnO film with respect to a reference electrode. Electrochemical potential changes ΔV ZnO up to –1 V vs Ag/Ag + are achieved for V G = +7 V. Furthermore, by measuring V ZnO vs V G , we extract the quantum capacitance CQ of the ZnO film as a function of the Fermi-level position, which provides a direct measure of the ZnO electronic density of states (DOS). Finally, we demonstrate that the gated ZnO working electrodes can disentangle the two principal components of electrochemical potential, namely, the Fermi-level shift Δδ and the double-layer charging energy eΔΦ EDL . This disentanglement hinges on a fundamental difference between back-gating and normal electrochemical control, namely, that electrochemical control requires double-layer charging, while back-gate control does not. Collectively, the results show that the backside gate electrode is an effective fourth terminal that enables measurements that are difficult to achieve in conventional three-terminal electrochemical setups.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Ambipolar Phosphorene Field Effect Transistor

Two dimensional materials provide an intriguing platform to investigate rich physical phenomena which could ultimately lead to the development of innovative nanotechnologies (1-17). Semiconducting black phosphorous (BP) with high carrier mobility (18-20), anisotropic transport (21, 22) and tunable bandgap (23, 24) is the most recent addition to this exotic class of two dimensional materials. In this article we experimentally demonstrate room temperature quasi ballistic transport of both holes and electrons in ionic liquid gated black phosphorous (BP) field effect transistors (FET) with sub-100nm channel length. The carrier mean free path (mfp) was found to be 15nm for the holes and 5nm for the electrons. By improving the carrier injection through superior electrostatic gate control (EOT=1.5nm), highly symmetric ambipolar conduction with record high hole current of ~0.78mA/µm and electron current of ~0.68mA/µm are achieved for VDD=0.2V. The extracted record low contact resistance of 220Ω-µm is similar to the state of the art Si technology. This is also the best contact resistance value achieved for any two dimensional metal-semiconductor interfaces. Finally, we provide an analytical framework to compare the experimental results with ballistic simulations which includes quantum capacitance considerations.

Ballistic Transport↗
DOE OSTI2014

Large Fermi energy modulation in graphene transistors with high-pressure O{sub 2}-annealed Y{sub 2}O{sub 3} topgate insulators

We demonstrate a considerable suppression of the low-field leakage through a Y{sub 2}O{sub 3} topgate insulator on graphene by applying high-pressure O{sub 2} at 100 atm during post-deposition annealing (HP-PDA). Consequently, the quantum capacitance measurement for the monolayer graphene reveals the largest Fermi energy modulation (E{sub F} = ∼0.52 eV, i.e., the carrier density of ∼2 × 10{sup 13} cm{sup −2}) in the solid-state topgate insulators reported so far. HP-PDA is the robust method to improve the electrical quality of high-k insulators on graphene.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Large area graphene ion sensitive field effect transistors with tantalum pentoxide sensing layers for pH measurement at the Nernstian limit

We have fabricated and characterized large area graphene ion sensitive field effect transistors (ISFETs) with tantalum pentoxide sensing layers and demonstrated pH sensitivities approaching the Nernstian limit. Low temperature atomic layer deposition was used to deposit tantalum pentoxide atop large area graphene ISFETs. The charge neutrality point of graphene, inferred from quantum capacitance or channel conductance, was used to monitor surface potential in the presence of an electrolyte with varying pH. Bare graphene ISFETs exhibit negligible response, while graphene ISFETs with tantalum pentoxide sensing layers show increased sensitivity reaching up to 55 mV/pH over pH 3 through pH 8. Applying the Bergveld model, which accounts for site binding and a Guoy-Chapman-Stern picture of the surface-electrolyte interface, the increased pH sensitivity can be attributed to an increased buffer capacity reaching up to 10{sup 14} sites/cm{sup 2}. ISFET response was found to be stable to better than 0.05 pH units over the course of two weeks.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Assessing Carbon-Based Anodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries: A Universal Description of Charge-Transfer Binding

Many key performance characteristics of carbon-based lithium-ion battery anodes are largely determined by the strength of binding between lithium (Li) and sp 2 carbon (C), which can vary significantly with subtle changes in substrate structure, chemistry, and morphology. We use density functional theory calculations to investigate the interactions of Li with a wide variety of sp 2 C substrates, including pristine, defective, and strained graphene, planar C clusters, nanotubes, C edges, and multilayer stacks. In almost all cases, we find a universal linear relation between the Li-C binding energy and the work required to fill previously unoccupied electronic states within the substrate. This suggests that Li capacity is predominantly determined by two key factors—namely, intrinsic quantum capacitance limitations and the absolute placement of the Fermi level. This simple descriptor allows for straightforward prediction of the Li-C binding energy and related battery characteristics in candidate C materials based solely on the substrate electronic structure. It further suggests specific guidelines for designing more effective C-based anodes. Furthermore, this method should be broadly applicable to charge-transfer adsorption on planar substrates, and provides a phenomenological connection to established principles in supercapacitor and catalyst design.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Controlling and visualizing Dirac physics in topological semimetal heterostructures

A bulk crystal of cadmium arsenide is a three-dimensional Dirac semimetal, but, in a thin film, it can behave like a three-dimensional topological insulator. This tunability provides unique opportunities to manipulate and explore a topological insulator phase. However, an obstacle to engineering such tunability is the subtlety of transport-based discriminants for topological phases. In this work, the quantum capacitance of cadmium arsenide–based heterostructures provides two direct experimental signatures of three-dimensional topological insulator physics: an insulating three-dimensional bulk and a Landau level at zero energy that does not disperse in a magnetic field. We proceed to join our ability to see these fingerprints of the topological surface states with flexibility afforded by our epitaxial heterostructures to demonstrate a route toward controlling the energy of the Dirac nodes on each surface. These results point to new avenues for engineering topological insulators based on cadmium arsenide.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Model Development for Current–Voltage and Transconductance Characteristics of Normally-off AlN/GaN MOSHEMT

In this paper, an AlN/GaN-based MOSHEMT is proposed, in accordance to this, a charge control model has been developed analytically and simulated with MATLAB to predict the characteristics of threshold voltage, drain currents and transconductance. The physics based models for 2DEG density, threshold voltage and quantum capacitance in the channel has been put forward. By using these developed models, the drain current for both linear and saturation models is derived. The predicted threshold voltage with the variation of barrier thickness has been plotted. A positive threshold voltage can be obtained by decreasing the barrier thickness which builds up the foundation for enhancement mode MOSHEMT devices. The predicted I{sub d}–V{sub gs}, I{sub d}–V{sub ds} and transconductance characteristics show an excellent agreement with the experimental results and hence validate the model.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Characterization of superconducting through-silicon vias as capacitive elements in quantum circuits

The large physical size of superconducting qubits and their associated on-chip control structures presents a practical challenge toward building a large-scale quantum computer. In particular, transmons require a high-quality-factor shunting capacitance that is typically achieved by using a large coplanar capacitor. Other components, such as superconducting microwave resonators used for qubit state readout, are typically constructed from coplanar waveguides, which are millimeters in length. Here, we use compact superconducting through-silicon vias to realize lumped-element capacitors in both qubits and readout resonators to significantly reduce the on-chip footprint of both of these circuit elements. We measure two types of devices to show that through-silicon vias are of sufficient quality to be used as capacitive circuit elements and provide a significant reduction in size over existing approaches.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2019

Thermal transistor and thermometer based on Coulomb-coupled conductors

We study a three-terminal setup consisting of a single-level quantum dot capacitively coupled to a quantum point contact. The point contact connects to a source and drain reservoir while the quantum dot is coupled to a single base reservoir. This setup has been used to implement a noninvasive, nanoscale thermometer for the bath reservoir by detecting the current in the quantum point contact. Here, we demonstrate that the device can also be operated as a thermal transistor where the average (charge and heat) current through the quantum point contact is controlled via the temperature of the base reservoir. We characterize the performances of this device both as a transistor and a thermometer and derive the operating condition maximizing their respective sensitivities. Furthermore, the present analysis is useful for the control of charge and heat flow and high precision thermometry at the nanoscale.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗