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Title: Effects of Interlayer Coupling on Hot-Carrier Dynamics in Graphene-Derived van der Waals Heterostructures

Journal Article · · Advanced Optical Materials
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2]
  1. Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States)

Graphene exhibits promise as a plasmonic material with high mode confinement that could enable efficient hot carrier extraction. The lifetimes and mean free paths of energetic carriers have been investigated in free-standing graphene, graphite, and a heterostructure consisting of alternating graphene and hexagonal boron nitride layers using ab initio calculations of electron–electron and electron–phonon scattering in these materials. It is found that the extremely high lifetimes (3 ps) of low-energy carriers near the Dirac point in graphene, which are a 100 times larger than that in noble metals, are reduced by an order of magnitude due to interlayer coupling in graphite, but enhanced in the heterostructure due to phonon mode clamping. However, these lifetimes drop precipitously with increasing carrier energy and are smaller than those in noble metals at energies exceeding 0.5 eV. By analyzing the contribution of different scattering mechanisms and interlayer interactions, desirable spacer layer characteristics—high dielectric constant and heavy atoms—that could pave the way for plasmonic heterostructures with improved hot carrier transport have been identified.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1543462
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1401286
Journal Information:
Advanced Optical Materials, Vol. 5, Issue 15; ISSN 2195-1071
Publisher:
WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 33 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (10)

2D Layered Material-Based van der Waals Heterostructures for Optoelectronics journal January 2018
A Hexanuclear Niobium Cluster Compound Crystallizing as Macroscopic Tubes journal September 2019
Tailoring far-infrared surface plasmon polaritons of a single-layer graphene using plasmon-phonon hybridization in graphene-LiF heterostructures journal September 2018
Carrier dynamics and spin–valley–layer effects in bilayer transition metal dichalcogenides journal January 2019
Similar ultrafast dynamics of several dissimilar Dirac and Weyl semimetals journal December 2017
Hot carrier dynamics in plasmonic transition metal nitrides journal May 2018
Optoelectronic response of the type-I Weyl semimetals TaAs and NbAs from first principles journal January 2020
Direct determination of mode-projected electron-phonon coupling in the time domain journal December 2019
Hot carrier dynamics in plasmonic transition metal nitrides text January 2018
Direct determination of mode-projected electron-phonon coupling in the time-domain text January 2019

Figures / Tables (3)


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