Theoretical Comparison between the Flicker Noise Behavior of Graphene and of Ordinary Semiconductors. (9th March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Macucci, Massimo; Marconcini, Paolo
• Other Names: Kish Laszlo B. Guest Editor.
• Is Part Of: Journal of sensors. Volume 2020(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-03-09
• Subjects: Detectors -- Periodicals; 681.205
• DOI: 10.1155/2020/2850268
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1687-725X

Abstract

Abstract : Graphene is a material of particular interest for the implementation of sensors, and the ultimate performance of devices based on such a material is often determined by its flicker noise properties. Indeed, graphene exhibits, with respect to the vast majority of ordinary semiconductors, a peculiar behavior of the flicker noise power spectral density as a function of the charge carrier density. While in most materials flicker noise obeys the empirical Hooge law, with a power spectral density inversely proportional to the number of free charge carriers, in bilayer, and sometimes monolayer, graphene a counterintuitive behavior, with a minimum of flicker noise at the charge neutrality point, has been observed. We present an explanation for this stark difference, exploiting a model in which we enforce both the mass action law and the neutrality condition on the charge fluctuations deriving from trapping/detrapping phenomena. Here, in particular, we focus on the comparison between graphene and other semiconducting materials, concluding that a minimum of flicker noise at the charge neutrality point can appear only in the presence of a symmetric electron-hole behavior, a condition characteristic of graphene, but which is not found in the other commonly used semiconductors.