Electrochemically exfoliated thin Bi2Se3 films and van der Waals heterostructures Bi2Se3/graphene

Thin Bi₂Se₃ flakes with few nanometer thicknesses and sized up to 350 μm were created by using electrochemical splitting from high-quality Bi₂Se₃ bulk monocrystals. The dependence of film resistance on the Bi₂Se₃ flake thickness demonstrates that, at room temperature, the bulk conductivity becomes negligible in comparison with the surface conductivity for films with thicknesses lower than 80 nm. Unexpectedly, all these films demonstrated p-type conductivity. The doping effect with sulfur or sulfur-related radicals during electrochemical exfoliation is suggested for the p-type conductivity of the exfoliated Bi₂Se₃ films. The formation of 2-8 nm films was predominantly found. Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures of Bi₂Se₃/Graphene/SiO₂/Si were created and their properties were compared with that of Bi₂Se₃ on the SiO₂/Si substrate. The increase of the conductivity and carrier mobility in Bi₂Se₃ flakes of 3-5 times was found for vdW heterostructures with graphene. Thin Bi₂Se₃ films are potentially interesting for applications for spintronics, nano- and optoelectronics.

Fluorinated graphene suspension for inkjet printed technologies

The possibility to control the size of the flakes of graphene suspension in the course of their fluorination in an aqueous hydrofluoric acid solution was demonstrated. The effect of the suspension composition, the fluorination time, temperature and thermal stress on the fragmentation process was investigated. The corrugation of suspension flakes, which occurs at fluorination due to a difference in the constants of graphene and fluorographene lattices, leads to the appearance of nonuniform mechanical stresses. The fact that the flake size after fragmentation is determined by the size of corrugation allows the assumption that the driving force of fragmentation is this mechanical stress. This assumption is confirmed by the break of the corrugated layers from flakes under thermal stress. Moreover, fluorination treatment at elevated temperatures (∼70 °C) significantly accelerates the fragmentation process. Suspensions of fluorinated graphene with nanometer size flakes are of interest for the development of 2D ink-jet printing technologies and production of thermally and chemically stable dielectric films for nanoelectronics. The printed fluorinated graphene films on silicon and flexible substrates have been demonstrated and the charges in metal-insulator-semiconductor structures have been estimated as the ultra low values of (0.5-2) × 10(10) cm(-2).

Extremely high response of electrostatically exfoliated few layer graphene to ammonia adsorption

Extremely high gas sensing properties of p-type few layer graphene flakes exfoliated from highly oriented pyrolytic graphite have been demonstrated. The current response to ammonia adsorption is strongly dependent on film thickness and is higher than that for graphene by 1-8 orders of magnitude. A maximal response was found for sample thickness ∼ 2 nm. The effect is attributed to the formation of multiple p-n-p junctions at the grain boundaries in the polycrystalline graphene flakes exposed to ammonia-containing ambient.