2018/10/31 by M. T. Greenaway, E. E. Vdovin, D. Ghazaryan +19 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #2D Materials and Applications #Band gap #Boron nitride #Electron #Graphene #Graphene research and applications #Heterojunction #Monolayer #Nitride #Quantum tunnelling #Thermal properties of materials #Tunnel effect #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s42005-018-0097-1
published as Communications Physics 1, 94 (2018) · Supplementary information can be found at https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-018-0097-1
openalex created_date 2018/10/12 · openalex publication_date 2018/12/10 · arxiv created 2018/12/14 · arxiv updated 2018/12/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract Hexagonal boron nitride is a large band gap layered crystal, frequently incorporated in van der Waals heterostructures as an insulating or tunnel barrier. Localised states with energies within its band gap can emit visible light, relevant to applications in nanophotonics and quantum information processing. However, they also give rise to conducting channels, which can induce electrical breakdown when a large voltage is applied. Here we use gated tunnel transistors to study resonant electron tunnelling through the localised states in few atomic-layer boron nitride barriers sandwiched between two monolayer graphene electrodes. The measurements are used to determine the energy, linewidth, tunnelling transmission probability, and depth within the barrier of more than 50 distinct localised states. A three-step process of electron percolation through two spatially separated localised states is also investigated.