AIP Advances (Mar 2012)

Electrical transport across metal/two-dimensional carbon junctions: Edge versus side contacts

  • Yihong Wu,
  • Ying Wang,
  • Jiayi Wang,
  • Miao Zhou,
  • Aihua Zhang,
  • Chun Zhang,
  • Yanjing Yang,
  • Younan Hua,
  • Baoxi Xu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3684617
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 1
pp. 012132 – 012132-12

Abstract

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Metal/two-dimensional carbon junctions are characterized by using a nanoprobe in an ultrahigh vacuum environment. Significant differences were found in bias voltage (V) dependence of differential conductance (dI/dV) between edge- and side-contact; the former exhibits a clear linear relationship (i.e., dI/dV ∝ V), whereas the latter is characterized by a nonlinear dependence, dI/dV ∝ V3/2. Theoretical calculations confirm the experimental results, which are due to the robust two-dimensional nature of the carbon materials under study. Our work demonstrates the importance of contact geometry in graphene-based electronic devices.