Soldering to a single atomic layer

ORAL

Abstract

The standard technique to make electrical contact to nanostructures is electron beam lithography. This method has several drawbacks including complexity, cost, and sample contamination. We present a simple technique to cleanly solder submicron sized, Ohmic contacts to nanostructures. To demonstrate, we contact graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon, and investigate low- and high-bias electronic transport. We set lower bounds on the current carrying capacity of graphene. A simple model allows us to obtain device characteristics such as mobility, minimum conductance, and contact resistance.

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Authors

  • Caglar Girit

    Dept. of Physics at U.C. Berkeley, Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley/Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, UC Berkeley, LBNL

  • Alex Zettl

    University of California, Berkeley, University of California at Berkeley, Dept. of Physics at U.C. Berkeley / Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Dept. of Physics, UC Berkeley/Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, UC Berkeley, LBNL