0000000000809436
AUTHOR
Fabrizio Roccaforte
showing 24 related works from this author
Effect of high temperature annealing (T > 1650 °C) on the morphological and electrical properties of p-type implanted 4H-SiC layers
2019
This work reports on the effect of high temperature annealing on the electrical properties of p-type implanted 4H-SiC. Ion implantations of Aluminum (Al) at different energies (30-200 keV) were carried out to achieve 300 nm thick acceptor box profiles with a concentration of about 10(20) at/cm(3). The implanted samples were annealed at high temperatures (1675-1825 degrees C). Morphological analyses of the annealed samples revealed only a slight increase of the surface roughness RMS up to 1775 degrees C, while this increase becomes more significant at 1825 degrees C (RMS = 1.2 nm). Room temperature Hall measurements resulted in a hole concentration in the range 0.65-1.34 x 10(18)/cm(3) and m…
Micro-Raman characterization of graphene grown on SiC(000-1)
2014
Graphene (Gr) was grown on the C face of 4H-SiC under optimized conditions (high annealing temperatures ranging from 1850 to 1950°C in Ar ambient at 900 mbar) in order to achieve few layers of Gr coverage. Several microscopy techniques, including optical microscopy (OM), ?Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and atomic resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) have been used to extensively characterize the lateral uniformity of the as-grown layers at different temperatures. ?Raman analysis provided information on the variation of the number of layers, of the stacking-type, doping and strain.
Substrate and atmosphere influence on oxygen p-doped graphene
2016
Abstract The mechanisms responsible for p-type doping of substrate supported monolayer graphene (Gr) by thermal treatments in oxygen ambient have been investigated by micro-Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), considering commonly employed dielectric substrates, such as SiO 2 and Al 2 O 3 thin films grown on Si. While a high p-type doping (∼10 13 cm −2 ) is observed for Gr on SiO 2 , no significant doping is found for Gr samples on the Al 2 O 3 substrate, suggesting a key role of the Gr/SiO 2 interface states in the trapping of oxygen responsible for the Gr p-type doping. Furthermore, we investigated the doping stability of Gr on SiO…
Nanoscale inhomogeneity of the Schottky barrier and resistivity inMoS2multilayers
2015
Conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM) is employed to investigate the current injection from a nanometric contact (a Pt coated tip) to the surface of ${\text{MoS}}_{2}$ thin films. The analysis of local current-voltage characteristics on a large array of tip positions provides high spatial resolution information on the lateral homogeneity of the $\mathrm{tip}/{\text{MoS}}_{2}$ Schottky barrier ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}}_{B}$ and ideality factor $n$, and on the local resistivity ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{\text{loc}}$ of the ${\text{MoS}}_{2}$ region under the tip. Here, ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}}_{B}=300\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}24\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\text{meV}, n=1.60\ifmmode…
Nanoscale structural and electrical properties of graphene grown on AlGaN by catalyst-free chemical vapor deposition
2020
The integration of graphene (Gr) with nitride semiconductors is highly interesting for applications in high-power/high-frequency electronics and optoelectronics. In this work, we demonstrated the direct growth of Gr on Al0.5Ga0.5N/sapphire templates by propane (C3H8) chemical vapor deposition (CVD) at temperature of 1350{\deg}C. After optimization of the C3H8 flow rate, a uniform and conformal Gr coverage was achieved, which proved beneficial to prevent degradation of AlGaN morphology. X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) revealed Ga loss and partial oxidation of Al in the near-surface AlGaN region. Such chemical modification of a 2 nm thick AlGaN surface region was confirmed by cross-sec…
In-situ monitoring by Raman spectroscopy of the thermal doping of graphene and MoS2 in O-2-controlled atmosphere
2017
The effects of temperature and atmosphere (air and O2) on the doping of monolayers of graphene (Gr) on SiO2 and Si substrates, and on the doping of MoS2 multilayer flakes transferred on the same substrates have been investigated. The investigations were carried out by in situ micro-Raman spectroscopy during thermal treatments up to 430 °C, and by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The spectral positions of the G and 2D Raman bands of Gr undergo only minor changes during treatment, while their amplitude and full width at half maximum (FWHM) vary as a function of the temperature and the used atmosphere. The thermal treatments in oxygen atmosphere show, in addition to a thermal effect, an effect a…
Barrier inhomogeneity in vertical Schottky diodes on free standing gallium nitride
2019
Abstract In this paper, the electrical behavior of a Ni/Au Schottky barrier on free standing GaN has been studied employing a variety of techniques and correlated with the material and interface quality. The temperature dependence of the ideality factor (n) and of the Schottky barrier height (ΦB) revealed a spatial inhomogeneity of the barrier. This behavior has been described by means of the Tung's model on inhomogeneous Schottky barriers. The origin of the barrier inhomogeneity can be likely associated to the surface quality of the GaN epilayer or to microstructure of the Ni/GaN interface.
Metal/Semiconductor Barrier Properties of Non-Recessed Ti/Al/Ti and Ta/Al/Ta Ohmic Contacts on AlGaN/GaN Heterostructures
2019
This paper compares the metal/semiconductor barrier height properties of non-recessed Ti/Al/Ti and Ta/Al/Ta contacts on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures. Both contacts exhibited a rectifying behavior after deposition and after annealing at temperatures up to 550 °
Direct atomic layer deposition of ultrathin aluminium oxide on monolayer $MoS_2$ exfoliated on gold: the role of the substrate
2021
In this paper we demonstrated the thermal Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) growth at 250 {\deg}C of highly homogeneous and ultra-thin ($\approx$ 3.6 nm) $Al_2O_3$ films with excellent insulating properties directly onto a monolayer (1L) $MoS_2$ membrane exfoliated on gold. Differently than in the case of 1L $MoS_2$ supported by a common insulating substrate ($Al_2O_3/Si$), a better nucleation process of the high-k film was observed on the 1L $MoS_2/Au$ system since the ALD early stages. Atomic force microscopy analyses showed a $\approx 50\%$ $Al_2O_3$ surface coverage just after 10 ALD cycles, its increasing up to $>90\%$ (after 40 cycles), and an uniform $\approx$ 3.6 nm film, after 80 cycle…
Current injection from metal to MoS2 probed at nanoscale by conductive atomic force microscopy
2016
Contacts with MoS2 are currently the object of many investigations, since current injection through metal/MoS2 interfaces represents one of the limiting factors to the performance of MoS2 thin film transistors. In this paper, we employed conductive atomic force microscopy (CAFM) to investigate the current injection mechanisms from a nanometric contact (a Pt coated tip) to the surface of MoS2 thin films exfoliated on SiO2. The analysis of local current-voltage (I-V) characteristics on a large array of tip positions provided high spatial resolution information on the lateral homogeneity of the tip/MoS2 Schottky barrier Phi(B) and of the ideality factor n. From the histograms of the measured P…
Substrate impact on the thickness dependence of vibrational and optical properties of large area $MoS_2$ produced by gold-assisted exfoliation
2021
The gold-assisted exfoliation is a very effective method to produce large-area ($cm^2$-scale) membranes of molybdenum disulfide ($MoS_2$) for electronics. However, the strong $MoS_2/Au$ interaction, beneficial for the exfoliation process, has a strong impact on the vibrational and light emission properties of $MoS_2$. Here, we report an atomic force microscopy (AFM), micro-Raman ($\mu-R$) and micro-Photoluminescence ($\mu-PL$) investigation of $MoS_2$ with variable thickness exfoliated on Au and subsequently transferred on an $Al_2O_3/Si$ substrate. The $E_{2g}$ - $A_{1g}$ vibrational modes separation $\Delta\mu$ (typically used to estimate $MoS_2$ thickness) exhibits an anomalous large val…
Seed‐Layer‐Free Atomic Layer Deposition of Highly Uniform Al 2 O 3 Thin Films onto Monolayer Epitaxial Graphene on Silicon Carbide
2019
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is the method of choice to obtain uniform insulating films on graphene for device applications. Owing to the lack of out-of-plane bonds in the sp(2) lattice of graphene, nucleation of ALD layers is typically promoted by functionalization treatments or predeposition of a seed layer, which, in turn, can adversely affect graphene electrical properties. Hence, ALD of dielectrics on graphene without prefunctionalization and seed layers would be highly desirable. In this work, uniform Al2O3 films are obtained by seed-layer-free thermal ALD at 250 degrees C on highly homogeneous monolayer (1L) epitaxial graphene (EG) (amp;gt;98% 1L coverage) grown on on-axis 4H-SiC(00…
Temperature and time dependent electron trapping in Al2O3 thin films onto AlGaN/GaN heterostructures
2022
In this article, the charge trapping phenomena in Al2O3 thin films grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures have been studied by time-dependent capacitance–voltage (C-V) measurements as a function of temperature. In particular, monitoring the transient of the capacitance enabled us to estimate the maximum depth of the insulating layer interested by the negative charge trapping effect under our bias stress conditions and to determine a charge traps density in the bulk Al2O3 in the order of 3 × 1019 cm−3. A temperature dependent C-V analysis up to 150 °C demonstrated the presence of two competitive mechanisms that rule the electron capture and emission in the Al2O3…
Ambipolar MoS2 Transistors by Nanoscale Tailoring of Schottky Barrier Using Oxygen Plasma Functionalization
2017
One of the main challenges to exploit molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) potentialities for the next-generation complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology is the realization of p-type or ambipolar field-effect transistors (FETs). Hole transport in MoS2 FETs is typically hampered by the high Schottky barrier height (SBH) for holes at source/drain contacts, due to the Fermi level pinning close to the conduction band. In this work, we show that the SBH of multilayer MoS2 surface can be tailored at nanoscale using soft O-2 plasma treatments. The morphological, chemical, and electrical modifications of MoS2 surface under different plasma conditions were investigated by several microscopi…
Highly Homogeneous 2D/3D Heterojunction Diodes by Pulsed Laser Deposition of MoS2 on Ion Implantation Doped 4H-SiC
2022
In this paper, 2D/3D heterojunction diodes have been fabricated by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of MoS2 on 4H-SiC(0001) surfaces with different doping levels, i.e., n− epitaxial doping (≈1016 cm−3) and n+ ion implantation doping (>1019 cm−3). After assessing the excellent thickness uniformity (≈3L-MoS2) and conformal coverage of the PLD-grown films by Raman mapping and transmission electron microscopy, the current injection across the heterojunctions is investigated by temperature-dependent current–voltage characterization of the diodes and by nanoscale current mapping with conductive atomic force microscopy. A wide tunability of the transport properties is shown by the SiC surface dopi…
Multiscale Investigation of the Structural, Electrical and Photoluminescence Properties of MoS2 Obtained by MoO3 Sulfurization
2022
In this paper, we report a multiscale investigation of the compositional, morphological, structural, electrical, and optical emission properties of 2H-MoS2 obtained by sulfurization at 800 °C of very thin MoO3 films (with thickness ranging from ~2.8 nm to ~4.2 nm) on a SiO2/Si substrate. XPS analyses confirmed that the sulfurization was very effective in the reduction of the oxide to MoS2, with only a small percentage of residual MoO3 present in the final film. High-resolution TEM/STEM analyses revealed the formation of few (i.e., 2–3 layers) of MoS2 nearly aligned with the SiO2 surface in the case of the thinnest (~2.8 nm) MoO3 film, whereas multilayers of MoS2 partially standing up with r…
Graphene p-Type Doping and Stability by Thermal Treatments in Molecular Oxygen Controlled Atmosphere
2015
Doping and stability of monolayer low defect content graphene transferred on a silicon dioxide substrate on silicon are investigated by micro-Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM) during thermal treatments in oxygen and vacuum controlled atmosphere. The exposure to molecular oxygen induces graphene changes as evidenced by a blue-shift of the G and 2D Raman bands, together with the decrease of I2D/IG intensity ratio, which are consistent with a high p-type doping (∼1013 cm-2) of graphene. The successive thermal treatment in vacuum does not affect the induced doping showing this latter stability. By investigating the temperature range 140-350 °C and the process time evolution, …
Impact of contact resistance on the electrical properties of MoS2 transistors at practical operating temperatures
2017
Molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) is currently regarded as a promising material for the next generation of electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, several issues need to be addressed to fully exploit its potential for field effect transistor (FET) applications. In this context, the contact resistance, RC, associated with the Schottky barrier between source/drain metals and MoS2 currently represents one of the main limiting factors for suitable device performance. Furthermore, to gain a deeper understanding of MoS2 FETs under practical operating conditions, it is necessary to investigate the temperature dependence of the main electrical parameters, such as the field effect mobility (μ) an…
Ohmic contacts on n-type and p-type cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC) grown on silicon
2019
This paper is a report on Ohmic contacts on n-type and p-type type cubic silicon carbide (3C-SiC) layers grown on silicon substrates. In particular, the morphological, electrical and structural properties of annealed Ni and Ti/Al/Ni contacts has been studied employing several characterization techniques. Ni films annealed at 950 degrees C form Ohmic contacts on moderately n-type doped 3C-SiC (N-D similar to 1 x 10(17) cm(-3)), with a specific contact resistance of 3.7 x 10(-3) Omega cm(2). The main phase formed upon annealing in this contact was nickel silicide (Ni2Si), with randomly dispersed carbon in the reacted layer. In the case of a p-type 3C-SiC with a high doping level (N-A similar …
Aluminum oxide nucleation in the early stages of atomic layer deposition on epitaxial graphene
2020
In this work, the nucleation and growth mechanism of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) in the early stages of the direct atomic layer deposition (ALD) on monolayer epitaxial graphene (EG) on silicon carbide (4H-SiC) has been investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Raman spectroscopy. Contrary to what is typically observed for other types of graphene, a large and uniform density of nucleation sites was observed in the case of EG and ascribed to the presence of the buffer layer at EG/SiC interface. The deposition process was characterized by Al2O3 island growth in the very early stages, followed by the formation of a continuous Al2O3 film (2.4 nm thick) after only 40 ALD cycles due to the isla…
Modification of the sheet resistance under Ti/Al/Ni/Au Ohmic contacts on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures
2018
This paper reports on the modification of the sheet resistance under Ti/Al/Ni/Au Ohmic contacts on AlGaN/GaN heterostructures, studied by means of Transmission Line Model (TLM) structures, morphological and structural analyses, as well as computer simulations. In particular, the contacts exhibited an Ohmic behaviour after annealing at 800 degrees C, with a specific contact resistance rho(c) = (2.4 +/- 0.2) x 10(-5) Omega cm(2), which was associated to morphological and structural changes of both the metal layer and the interface. Interestingly, TLM analyses gave a value of the sheet resistance under the contact (R-SK = 26.1 +/- 5.0 Omega/rectangle) significantly lower than that measured out…
Interfacial disorder of graphene grown at high temperatures on 4H-SiC(000-1)
2016
This paper presents an investigation of the morphological and structural properties of graphene (Gr) grown on SiC(000-1) by thermal treatments at high temperatures (from 1850 to 1950 °C) in Ar at atmospheric pressure. Atomic force microscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy showed that the grown Gr films are laterally inhomogeneous in the number of layers, and that regions with different stacking-type (coupled or decoupled Gr films) can coexist in the same sample. Scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy shoed that a nm-thick C-Si-O amorphous layer is present at the interface between Gr and SiC. Basing on these structural results, the mechanisms of Gr grow…
Ohmic Contacts on p-Type Al-Implanted 4H-SiC Layers after Different Post-Implantation Annealings
2019
This paper reports on the electrical activation and Ohmic contact properties on p-type Al-implanted silicon carbide (4H-SiC). In particular, the contacts were formed on 4H-SiC-implanted layers, subjected to three different post-implantation annealing processes, at 1675 °
Effect of air on oxygen p-doped graphene on SiO2
2016
Stability in ambient air or in vacuum-controlled atmosphere of molecular oxygen-induced p-type doping of graphene monolayer on SiO2 substrate on Si is investigated by micro-Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The Raman 2D and G bands spectral positions and amplitude ratio are affected by the permanence in air atmosphere in a time scale of months whereas the vacuum safely maintains the doping effects determined through Raman bands. No morphological effects are induced by the doping and post-doping treatments. A reactivity of ambient molecular gas with stably trapped oxygen is suggested to induce the doping modification. (C) 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim