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Cronfa - Swansea University Open Access Repository _____________________________________________________________ This is an author produced version of a paper published in: ACS Nano Cronfa URL for this paper: http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa37758 _____________________________________________________________ Paper: Hu, G., Zhang, Y., Li, L. & Wang, Z. (2017). Piezotronic Transistor Based on Topological Insulators. ACS Nano http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.7b07996 _____________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence. Copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. The copyright for any work remains with the original author unless otherwise specified. 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Piezotronic Transistor Based on Topological Insulators Journal: ACS Nano Manuscript ID nn-2017-07996f.R2 Manuscript Type: Article Date Submitted by the Author: 22-Dec-2017 Complete List of Authors: Hu, Gongwei; University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, School of Physical Electronics Zhang, Yan; University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, School of Physical Electronics Li, Lijie; Swansea University, Wang, Zhonglin; Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Material Science and Engineeri ACS Paragon Plus Environment Page 1 of 23 ACS Nano 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Piezotronic Transistor Based on Topological 8 9 10 11 Insulators 12 13 14 15 16 Gongwei Hu †, Yan Zhang †, ‡,*, Lijie Li §, and Zhong Lin Wang ‡, #,* 17 18 19 † School of Physical Electronics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, 20 21 22 Chengdu 610054, China 23 24 25 ‡ Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences; National 26 27 Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST), Beijing 100083, China 28 29 30 § 31 Multidisciplinary Nanotechnology Centre, College of Engineering, Swansea University, 32 33 Swansea, SA1 8EN, UK 34 35 36 # School of Material Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia 30332, 37 38 39 United States 40 41 42 KEYWORDS: piezotronics, topological insulator, quantum state, piezotronic switch, 43 44 piezotronic logical unit. 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 ABSTRACT: Piezotronics and piezophototronics are emerging fields by coupling piezoelectric, 52 53 semiconductor and photon excitation effects for achieving high-performance strain-gated 54 55 56 sensors, LEDs, and solar cells. The built-in piezoelectric potential effectively controls carrier 57 58 59 60 ACS Paragon Plus Environment 1 ACS Nano Page 2 of 23 1 2 3 transport characteristics in piezoelectric semiconductor materials, such as ZnO, GaN, InN, CdS 4 5 6 and monolayer MoS2. In this paper, a topological insulator piezotronic transistor is investigated 7 8 theoretically based on HgTe/CdTe quantum well. The conductance, ON/OFF ratio, and density 9 10 of states have been studied at various strains for the topological insulator piezotronic transistor. 11 12 The ON/OFF ratio of conductance can reach up to 1010 with applied strain. The properties of 13 14 15 topological insulator are modulated by piezoelectric potential, which is the result of piezotronic 16 17 effect on quantum states. The principle provides a method for developing high-performance 18 19 piezotronic devices based on topological insulator. 20 21 22 23 24 25 Piezoelectric semiconductors have the coupling properties of piezoelectric and semiconductor, 26 27 28 such as ZnO, GaN, InN and CdS. The emerging fields of piezotronic and piezophototronic have 29 30 attracted much attention for flexible energy harvesting and sensor applications.1, 2 A series of 31 32 multifunctional electromechanical devices have been developed by nanostructure piezoelectric 33 34 3-5 6 35 semiconductor, such as nanogenerator, piezoelectric field effect transistor, high-sensitivity 36 37 strain sensor,7 piezo-phototronic photocell,8 and LED.9 Piezotronic logic devices based on 38 39 strain-gated transistors can convert mechanical stimulus to digital signal for logical 40 41 10-12 13 14 42 computation. Taxel-addressable matrices and photon-strain sensor arrays have been 43 44 fabricated for integrated chips. Furthermore, nanogenerator and piezotronic transistor have been 45 15, 16 46 developed by single-atomic-layer MoS2. 47 48 For high sensitivity of piezotronic and piezophototronic devices, strain-induced piezoelectric 49 50 17-19 51 potential plays a key role by controlling carrier generation, transport, and recombination. The 52 53 width of piezoelectric charge distribution is an important parameter for improving performance 54 55 of piezotronic transistor. By using the density functional theory, our previous theoretical studies 56 57 58 59 60 ACS Paragon Plus Environment 2 Page 3 of 23 ACS Nano 1 2 3 have calculated the width of piezoelectric charge distribution in piezotronic transistors based on 4 5 20, 21 6 different metal and semiconductor. Furthermore, piezoelectric charges change wavelength 7 8 and enhance luminescence in quantum devices, such as ZnO nanowire, single-atomic-layer MoS2 9 22-25 10 and CdTe quantum dot devices. 11 12 Topological insulators have been revealed theoretically and experimentally based on 13 14 26-28 15 HgTe/CdTe quantum well structure, which have potential application for low energy 16 17 consumption and quantum computer.29, 30 The static strain can create or destroy topological 18 19 insulator states, such as HgTe and Bi Se topological insulator.31, 32 Recent theoretical results 20 2 3 21 22 present that the coupling of strong electric field and strain can create topological insulator states 23 33 24 in GaN/InN/GaN quantum well. 25 26 In this paper, topological insulator piezotronic transistor is proposed based on HgTe/CdTe 27 28 29 quantum well structure. A thin HgTe layer is sandwiched between two CdTe layers to form a 30 31 quantum well which has an inverted band. Strain-induced piezoelectric field modulates the 32 33 electron transport in HgTe quantum wells. Therefore, the piezotronic transistor based on 34 35 topological insulator is a mechanically manipulating device using by the piezotronic effect. The 36 37 10 38 ON/OFF conductance ratio can reach up to 10 . Piezotronic transistor based on topological 39 40 insulator can be used for high performance and ultra-low power consumption switch, logical unit 41 42 and strain sensor. 43 44 45 46 47 To illustrate the piezotronic transistor based on topological insulator, Figure 1 shows the 48 49 HgTe/CdTe quantum well structure with split gate on the side of HgTe. The constriction between 50 51 34 52 the left and right gate acts as quantum point contact (QPC). The width of quantum point 53 54 contact can be turned by piezoelectric potential. Figure.1 (a) shows a gapless band structure in 55 56 57 58 59 60 ACS Paragon Plus Environment 3 ACS Nano Page 4 of 23 1 2 3 quantum point contact without piezoelectric potential, which is typical topological insulator 4 5 6 based on the HgTe/CdTe quantum well structure. The current can flow across quantum point 7 8 contact region without piezoelectric potential. This state is “ON” state of this device. The width 9 10 of quantum point contact decreases while the piezoelectric potential increases. While the band 11 12 gap is formed by applied strain, the conducting channel closes, as shown in Figure.1 (b). 13 14 15 Therefore the electrons will be blocked and reflected back, resulting in “OFF” state. 16 17 Piezotronic transistor based on topological insulator is a quantum piezotronic device, which 18 19 uses piezoelectric field to control the conductance of topological insulator. Initial state is 20 21 22 topological insulator state without applied strain. Energy band structure of topological insulator 23 24 state changes from gapless to having a gap by applying strain. In the case of HgTe/CdTe 25 26 quantum well structure, strain-induced piezoelectric field is parallel to the surface of topological 27 28 29 insulator. The direction of piezoelectric field also can be perpendicular to surface of topological 30 31 insulator. For example, in case of GaN/InN/GaN quantum well structure, the band gap becomes 32 33 smaller while the strain-induced piezoelectric field increases.33 Thus, topological insulator states 34 35 are formed by strain-induced piezoelectric field. 36 37 38 Besides above two type topological insulator based piezotronic transistor, possible structures 39 40 of using piezoelectric field to control topological insulator states are GaAs/Ge/GaAs quantum 41 42 well 35 and two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides 36, such as MoS , MoSe and 43 2 2 44 45 WSe2. 46 47 Electronic transport in the quantum well can be described by Schrödinger equation 48 49 HEψ= ψ (1) 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60