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High-field transport properties of graphene

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 JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS 110, 063704 (2011)

High-field transport properties of graphene

H. M. Dong,1 W. Xu,2,a) and F. M. Peeters3
1
Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Hefei 230031
2
Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Hefei 230031, China and Department of Physics, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China
3
Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020 Antwerpen, Belgium
(Received 12 June 2011; accepted 5 August 2011; published online 16 September 2011)
We present a theoretical investigation on the transport properties of graphene in the presence of
high dc driving fields. Considering electron interactions with impurities and acoustic and optical
phonons in graphene, we employ the momentum- and energy-balance equations derived from the
Boltzmann equation to self-consistently evaluate the drift velocity and temperature of electrons in
graphene in the linear and nonlinear response regimes. We find that the current-voltage relation
exhibits distinctly nonlinear behavior, especially in the high electric field regime. Under the action
of high-fields the large source-drain (sd) current density can be achieved and the current saturation
in graphene is incomplete with increasing the sd voltage Vsd up to 3 V. Moreover, for high fields,
Vsd > 0:1 V, the heating of electrons in graphene occurs. It is shown that the sd current and electron
temperature are sensitive to electron density and lattice temperature in the graphene device.
This study is relevant to the application of graphene as high-field nano-electronic devices such as
C 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3633771]
graphene field-effect transistors. V

I. INTRODUCTION Interestingly, such current saturation is incomplete and sensi-

tive to the carrier density in graphene samples (i.e., to the
Graphene, a dense honeycomb two-dimensional struc-
applied gate voltages).11 These important experimental find-
ture formed by monolayer; or a few layers of carbon atoms,
ings strongly suggest that graphene can be applied as
was experimentally realized in 2004.1 It is a massless and
advanced high-field and high-speed nano-electronic devices.
gapless Dirac quasi-particle system with a roughly linear
However, it should be noted that different experimental results
energy dispersion. Graphene has attracted great attention in
were obtained in Refs. 10 and 11 because very distinct gra-
condensed matter physics, nano-material science, and nano-
phene samples were used in the studies and different experi-
electronics in recent years. In an air-graphene-substrate sys-
mental methods were employed in the measurements. To
tem, the carrier density can be controlled effectively through,
explain the experimental findings, the effect of interfacial pho-
e.g., applying a gated voltage. Such a device exhibits excel-
nons in the substrate was considered in Ref. 10, whereas such
lent electronic transport properties, such as high mobility at
an interfacial phonon effect was not taken into account in Ref.
room-temperature,2 a long mean free path,3 and a high on/off
11. Thus, they obtained rather different conclusions in under-
current ratio.4 Hence, graphene has already been applied to
standing their experimental results. Interfacial phonons near
realize novel nano-electronic devices such as high-speed
the substrate surface can play a role in affecting the transport
field-effect transistors (FETs),5 p-n junctions,6 and high-
properties of practical graphene samples. However the effects
frequency electronic devices,7 to mention but a few. In
of these phonons on the physical properties of a graphene de-
recent years the investigation of graphene-based nano-
vice are extremely sensitive to the graphene sheet prepared by
electronic systems has become a hot field of research due to
different techniques, experimental conditions, and to the type
its important applications in nano-electronics.8
of substrate and its contact with the graphene sheet. Motivated
Recently, experimental research has been conducted to
by these important experimental activities and interesting ex-
investigate the exceptional transport properties of graphene in
perimental findings, here we carry out a detailed theoretical
high electric fields.9–11 Experimentally, Kurz et al. have found
study on the high-field transport properties of graphene devi-
that the carrier mobility of graphene field-effect devices
ces. We intend to examine a more general scattering mecha-
sharply exceeds the universal mobility measured in silicon
nism intrinsically present in graphene in order to understand
FETs and in ultra-thin metal-oxide-semiconductor devices.9
the physical reasons behind above-mentioned experimental
At room-temperature a gated graphene device holds a very
observations. We would like to focus our attention on the
high carrier density and the source-drain (sd) current density
dominant inelastic electron  acoustic-phonon scattering in a
along with unusual current-voltage (I-V) characteristics.10,11
graphene sheet in high dc driving fields. Such a mechanism
For graphene, the sd current saturates as the sd voltage, Vsd ,
has not yet been carefully considered in the previous theoreti-
increases to a few volts10 and the I-V characteristics very
cal investigations.
strongly exhibit non-linearity or non-ohmic behaviors.10,11
The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II, we develop
a theoretical approach which can be used to self-consistently
a)
Electronic mail: wenxu_issp@yahoo.cn. determine the drift velocity and temperature of electrons in

0021-8979/2011/110(6)/063704/6/$30.00 110, 063704-1 C 2011 American Institute of Physics

V

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 063704-2 Dong, Xu, and Peeters
graphene in the linear and nonlinear response regimes. Thus,
we can evaluate the high-field transport properties of a gra-
phene device. The results are presented and discussed in Sec.
III, where we compare the theoretical results with those
experimentally obtained. The main conclusions obtained
from this study are summarized in Sec. IV.
II. THEORETICAL APPROACH
A. Electronic transition rates
In this study, we consider a gate-controlled graphene de-
vice on a dielectric wafer such as SiO2 /Si, which is similar to
the sample devices used experimentally.4,9,11 In a such sys-
tem, the carrier density can be effectively tuned by the
applied gated voltages, Vg , and the in-plane current, I, can be
induced by the presence of the source to drain dc voltages,
Vsd , applied along the x-direction of the graphene sheet.11,12
A carrier in monolayer graphene can be described by Weyl’s
equation and the wavefunction, wkk ðrÞ ¼ 21=2 ½1; kei/ eikr ,
and the energy spectrum, Ek ðkÞ ¼ kck, can be obtained ana-
lytically.13 Here, r ¼ ðx; yÞ, k ¼ ðkx ; ky Þ is the wavevector
for an electron or a hole along the graphene sheet, c ¼ hvF
with vF ¼ 108 cm/s being the Fermi-velocity, / is the angle
between k and the x-direction, and k ¼ 1 for an electron and
k ¼ 1 for a hole.
In such a system, the electronic transition rate induced
by carrier interactions with charged impurities and phonons
can be obtained from Fermi’s golden rule, which reads,
2p 
Wkk0 ðk; k0 Þ ¼ jU 0 ðqÞj2 dk0;kþq d½Ek ðkÞ  Ek0 ðk0 Þ þ hxj :
h kk

(1)
It measures the probability for scattering of a carrier from a
state jk; ki to a state jk0 ; k0 i. Here, jUkk
 2
0 ðqÞj is the square of
the matrix element for a carrier interaction with the  th scat-
tering center referring to the impurity or phonon scattering,
xj ¼ 0 for the elastic carrier-impurity scattering, xj ¼ xq
for the phonon absorption scattering with xq being the pho-
non frequency, and xj ¼ xq for the phonon emission scat-
tering in graphene. For the case of carrier-impurity
scattering, q ¼ ðqx ; qy Þ is the change of the carrier wavevec-
tor during a scattering event. For the case of carrier-phonon
coupling, q is the phonon wavevector due to the requirement
of the momentum conservation for a scattering event.
In our theoretical model, we consider an ideal graphene
field effect device in which the effects of disorder and defects
are very weak. Thus, it is reasonable to include only the intrin-
sic carrier-impurity and carrier-phonon scattering centers in
an ideal graphene-wafer system.14 Moreover, similarly to con-
ventional III-V based semiconductor systems the inter-valley
scattering in graphene needs very large momentum and
energy transfer in the Brillouin zone and the strength of the
driving electric field must therefore, be extremely strong to
cause such transitions. However, this may result in the break-
down of the graphene device. Therefore, we do not include
the intervalley transition in the present study, which is in line
with other published work.10,11 Monolayer graphene is a very
stable Fermi system that can achieve a high current density.
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J. Appl. Phys. 110, 063704 (2011)
The trigonal warping in high energy states can affect the
electronic spectrum in multi-layer graphene, whereas it can
be safely neglected in monolayer graphene.15 In fact, this
is one of the major advantages for high field graphene
nano-electronic devices.
B. Momentum and energy balance equations
In this paper, we employ the semi-classical Boltzmann
equation (BE) to study the response of the carriers in gra-
phene to the applied dc driving electric field Fx ¼ Vsd =L,
with Vsd being the voltage applied along the conducting
channel and L being the length from source to drain electro-
des for such a graphene device. The BE in the presence of an
external electrical field, Fx , applied along the x-direction can
be written, in non-degenerate statistics, as
eFx @fk ðkÞ X
k ¼ gs gv ½Fk0 k ðk0 ; kÞ  Fkk0 ðk; k0 Þ; (2)
h @kx 0 0
k ;k
where gs ¼ 2 and gv ¼ 2 account, respectively, for spin and
valley degeneracy, fk ðkÞ is the momentum-distribution
function for a carrier at a state jk; ki, and Fkk0 ðk; k0 Þ
¼ fk ðkÞ½1  fk0 ðk0 ÞWkk0 ðk; k0 Þ. Here we assume that the
momentum-distribution function for a carrier can be described
by a drifted energy-distribution function fk ðkÞ ’ f ðEk ðkk ÞÞ, in
the presence of the driving electric field Fx , where
kk ¼ k  kkv , with kkv ¼ kkF vk =vF being the shift of the mo-
mentum due to the presence of the drift velocity of an elec-
tron, vk ¼ ðvkx ; 0Þ is the electron velocity, and kkF is the Fermi
wavevector for an electron or a hole in graphene. In the pres-
ent study, we apply the usual balance-equation approach on
the basis of the BE to investigate the electronic transport prop-
erties of the graphene system.16 The balance-equation
approach based on the BE is a powerful theoretical tool used
to handle the nonlinear transport problem of the electron gas
systems with the long mean-free path under the action of
strong dc driving fields.17,18 For conventional semiconductor
systems, the drifted distribution function has been verified by
Monte-Carlo simulations.19 Such an approach has also been
successfully employed to investigate high field transport prop-
erties in nano-electronic systems such as carbon nanotubes
and graphene systems.11,18,20
For the first moment, the momentum-balance
P equation
can be derived by multiplying gs gv k kx to both sides of the
BE, which reads,
eFx 16 X
¼ kx ½Fk0 k ðk0 ; kÞ  Fkk0 ðk; k0 Þ; (3)
h nk 0 0
k ;k ;k
P
where nþ ¼ ne ¼ Pgs gv k fþ ðkÞ is the electron density and
n ¼ nh ¼ gs gv k ½1  f ðkÞ is the hole density in gra-
phene. Thus, we obtain two momentum-balance equations
for, respectively, electrons and holes,
eFx 16 X
¼ ½ðkx  kx0 ÞFþþ ðk; k0 Þ
h ne k0 ;k
þ k0x Fþ ðk; k0 Þ  kx Fþ ðk; k0 Þ; (4)
 063704-3 Dong, Xu, and Peeters J. Appl. Phys. 110, 063704 (2011)

  2
and ap Nq hED q
eFx 16 X jUkk0 ðqÞj
2
¼ ð1 þ kk0 cos hÞ; (10)
¼ ½ðkx  kx0 ÞF ðk; k0 Þ Nq þ 1 4qvs

h nh k0 ;k
þ k0x Fþ ðk; k0 Þ  kx Fþ ðk; k0 Þ: (5) where Nq ¼ ðehxq =kB T  1Þ1 is the phonon occupation number
with T being the lattice temperature, hxq ¼ hvs q is the longitu-
For the second moment, the energy-balance
P equation can be dinal (s ¼ l) or transverse (s ¼ t) acoustic-phonon energy,
derived by multiplying gs gv k Ek ðkÞ to both sides of the ED ¼ 9 eV is the deformation potential constant,26
BE, which becomes, q ¼ 6:5  108 g/cm2 is the areal density of the graphene
sheet, and vs ¼ tl ¼ 2:1  106 cm/s, and vs ¼ tt ¼ 7:0  105
eFx X @fk ðkÞ X
 4k Ek ðkÞ ¼ 16 Ek ðkÞ cm/s are, respectively, the longitudinal and transverse sound
h k @kx 0 0 velocities in the graphene layer.12 It should be noted that in gra-
k ;k ;k
 ½Fk0 k ðk0 ; kÞ  Fkk0 ðk; k0 Þ: (6) phene the optical phonon energy is relatively large (hx0  196
meV). Acoustic-phonon scattering plays a more important role
Thus, two energy-balance equations for, respectively, elec- in determining the transport coefficients in a graphene device.
trons and holes are This has been verified by recent experimental and theoretical
studies.21,25 Hence, we should handle c-ap scattering more
eFx X @fþ ðkÞ X
4 Eþ ðkÞ ¼ 16 ½ðEþ ðkÞ  Eþ ðk0 ÞÞ carefully in graphene in the presence of relatively strong driv-
h k @kx 0
k ;k ing fields.
 Fþþ ðk;k0 Þ þ E ðk0 ÞFþ ðk;k0 Þ  Eþ ðkÞFþ ðk;k0 Þ; The carrier  optical-phonon (c-op) interaction can be
taken into consideration by using the usual valence-force-
(7) field model for a graphene system.27 It is known that at very
and high-temperatures, carriers interact strongly with longitudi-
nal and transverse optical phonons in graphene.21,28 Such an
eFx X @f ðkÞ X interaction can result in a relatively large energy transfer due
4 EðkÞ ¼ 16 ½ðE ðkÞ  E ðk0 ÞÞ

h k @kx 0
to the inelastic nature of the scattering in graphene.29 The
k ;k
square of the matrix element for c-op scattering is simply,21
 F ðk; k0 Þ þ Eþ ðk0 ÞFþ ðk; k0 Þ  E ðkÞFþ ðk; k0 Þ:  
(8) op 2 N0
jUkk0 ðqÞj ¼ g2 c2 : (11)
N0 þ 1
C. Impurity and phonon scattering in graphene
In a gated graphene, the majority of the charged impur- Here, the contributions from both longitudinal and transverse
ities21 are located around the interface between the graphene optic-phonon modes in graphene have been summed up,
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
layer and substrate with an effective impurity concentration, N0 ¼ ðehx0 =kB T  1Þ1 , g ¼ ðhB=b2 Þ= 2qhx0 , hx0 ¼ 196
ni  1011 cm2 . Using the usual random-phase approxima- meV is the longitudinal and transverse optic-phonon energy
tion,21,22 the effect of the carrier-carrier (c-c) screening can at the C-point, B ¼ dðlnc0 Þ=dðln bÞ  2 is a dimensionless
be included for effective scattering in a graphene system. parameter that relates to the change of the resonance integral,
pffiffiffi
The square of the carrier-impurity (e-i) scattering matrix ele- c0 , between nearest neighbor carbon atoms, and b ¼ a= 3 is
ments are, the equilibrium bond length.28 For the case where the driving
dc field is not extremely strong the presence of non-
! equilibrium phonons and the hot-phonon effect can be safely
im 2 2pe2 2 1 þ kk0 cos h neglected.10,11,20
jUkk 0 ðqÞj ¼ ni ; (9)
j 2ðq þ ks Þ2
D. Transport coefficients in graphene
where h is the angle between k and k0 , ks is the inverse screen- From now on, we consider that the conducting carriers
ing length induced by the c-c interaction, and j is the dielectric in graphene are electrons in the presence of a positive gate
constant for the substrate wafer. Under the usual random-phase voltage. In such a case ne  1013 cm2 , typically for the con-
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
approximation,23 limq!0 ks ’ 4e2 pnk =j0 c, with j0 being the duction band, and nh ¼ 0 and f ðkÞ ¼ 1 for holes because
effective dielectric constant for the graphene sheet. Moreover, the valence band is fully occupied by electrons and only the
the mismatch of the dielectric constants in different material electron-electron interaction is present (k ¼ k0 ¼ þ). Thus,
layers in an air-graphene-substrate system can be evaluated in the momentum-balance equation for electrons in the conduc-
order to obtain the effective dielectric constant j0 .22 tion band becomes,
For carrier  acoustic-phonon (c-ap) scattering, we con-
sider carrier interactions with longitudinal and transverse ð1 ð 2p ð 2p
acoustic-phonon modes via deformation potential coupling 2 X
eFx ne ¼ dk d/ dhkk0
in graphene.24,25 The inelastic nature of the c-ap scattering is p3 c  0 0 0
considered in this study, in contrast to the usual quasi-elastic  ½k cos /  k0 cosð/ þ hÞfþ ðKÞ
approximation in handling the c-ap interactions.25 The
square of the matrix element for the c-ap scattering is,  ½1  fþ ðK 0 ÞjUþþ

ðqÞj2 : (12)

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 063704-4 Dong, Xu, and Peeters J. Appl. Phys. 110, 063704 (2011)

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Here, k0 ¼ k þ hxj =c, q ¼ k2  2kk0 cos h þ k02 ,
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
K ¼ k2  2kkv cos / þ k2v with kv ¼ keF vd =vF , and
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
K 0 ¼ k02  2k0 kv cosð/ þ hÞ þ k2v , vd ¼ vex is the drift ve-
locity of electrons in the x-direction along which the driving
electric field is applied. This equation implies that the mo-
mentum change of electrons under the action of the dc elec-
tric field must be balanced by that due to scattering with
impurities and phonons. The energy-balance equation for
electrons in the conduction band is now,
ð1 ðp
fþ ðkÞkðk cos / þ kv Þ hxj X
eFx dk d/ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ¼  2
0 0 k2 þ 2kkv cos / þ k2v pc 
ð 1 ð 2p ð 2p
FIG. 1. I  Vsd characteristics for different electron densities, ne ¼ 3  1012
 dk d/ dhkk0 fþ ðKÞ½1  fþ ðK 0 ÞjUþþ 
ðqÞj2 : cm2 (solid curve), ne ¼ 1  1012 cm2 (dashed curve), ne ¼ 5  1011
0 0 0
cm2 (dotted curve), and ne ¼ 1  1011 cm2 (dotted-dashed curve) at a lat-
(13) tice temperature, T, and a fixed impurity density, ni (see Ref. 11) in gra-
phene. The inset shows the results in the linear response regime.
This equation reflects the fact that the energy gain by carriers
from the applied electric field must be balanced by the FET devices. We find that the current density depends sensi-
energy loss due to scattering with phonons. The elastic impu- tively upon the carrier density and the current increases with
rity scattering does not affect the energy transfer for elec- the carrier density (or applied gated voltage) in graphene.
trons in graphene. With increasing carrier density, the nonlinear behavior of the
We now take the drifted Fermi-Dirac function with elec- I  Vsd characteristic becomes more obvious. It is found that
tron temperature, Te , as the distribution function for electrons the I  Vsd behavior shown in Fig. 1 agrees both qualitatively
in graphene. Considering the law of charge number conser- and quantitatively with those measured experimentally.10,11
vation, we have In Fig. 2, we plot the electron temperature, Te , as a func-
tion of the source-drain voltage, Vsd , for different electron
2ðkB Te Þ2 Li2 ðele =kB Te Þ þ pc2 ne ¼ 0; (14) densities at a fixed lattice temperature of T ¼ 300 K. Under
with Lin ðxÞ being the poly-logarithm function. From this the action of the weak electric fields (Vsd < 0:1 V), Te is
equation, we can determine the chemical potential, le , for roughly the same as the lattice temperature, T, in graphene
electrons in the presence of the driving electric field. By solv- (see Fig. 2). Namely, when Vsd < 0:1 V the electrons are in
ing Eqs. (12), (13), and (14) self-consistently, we can obtain the linear response regime where the heating of electrons
the chemical potential, le , drift velocity, vd , and temperature, does not occur in graphene. This implies that in graphene the
Te , for electrons in graphene under the action of an electric Ohm’s law holds when Vsd < 0:1 V (see the inset of Fig. 1).
field, Fx . In conjunction with the experimental work,11 the in- When Vsd > 0:1 V, the heating of electrons in graphene
plane current, I ¼ ene vd L, for a given source-to-drain voltage, takes place, so that the electron temperature is obviously
Vsd , in a graphene sample can be calculated. higher than the lattice temperature (see Fig. 2). The electron
temperature increases rapidly with Vsd , and the non-ohmic
behavior of the I  Vsd relation can be observed. We find
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In Fig. 1, we show the I  Vsd relation for different elec-
tron densities, ne , at a lattice temperature, T, and a fixed impu-
rity concentration, ni , in graphene. The I  Vsd characteristic
distinctly exhibits nonlinearity or non-ohmic behavior, espe-
cially in the high electric field regime. The inset in the figure
shows the I  Vsd relation in the linear response regime. We
see, obviously, that at the low electric field regime, the Ohmic
law holds (see the inset in Fig. 1). When the applied driving
electric field becomes large, the I  Vsd relation shows a non-
linear response behavior. As expected, the larger the Vsd , the
stronger the nonlinear/non-ohmic behavior can be observed
(see Fig. 1). There is a very large source-drain current density
due to the high mobility and high electron density achieved in
graphene. Under the action of the high-fields the current satu-
ration in graphene is incomplete with increasing the source- FIG. 2. Electron temperature, Te , as a function of source-drain voltage, Vsd ,
drain voltage, Vsd , up to 3 V (see Fig. 1). This feature is in for different electron densities, ne , at a lattice temperature, T ¼ 300 K, and a
sharp contrast to that observed in conventional semiconductor fixed impurity density, ni .

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 063704-5 Dong, Xu, and Peeters
FIG. 3. I  Vsd characteristics for different lattice temperatures, T, at the
fixed electron density, ne , and impurity concentration, ni (see Ref. 11).
that the heating of electrons strongly depends on the electron
density in graphene samples at a fixed Vsd . The higher the
electron density is, the stronger the hot-electron effect can be
observed in graphene. This behavior can also be seen in the
I  Vsd relation in Fig. 1.
In Fig. 3, the I  Vsd relation is shown for different lattice
temperatures, T, at the fixed electron density, ne , and impurity
density, ni , in graphene. As one can see, the current is very sen-
sitive to the lattice temperature, T. The current, I, quickly
decreases with increasing T. A higher temperature implies a
larger phonon occupation number, Nq ¼ ½ehxq =kB T  11 and,
therefore, a stronger electron-phonon interaction. The strong
electron-phonon scattering can result in a low drift velocity or a
small current density in a graphene device. As a consequence,
the current decreases with increasing lattice temperature.
In Fig. 4, the electron temperature, Te , as a function of
voltage, Vsd , is plotted for different lattice temperatures, T, at
the fixed electron density, ne , and impurity density, ni , in gra-
phene. Similar to a conventional 2DEG,19 the higher the lat-
tice temperature is, the wider the linear response regime can
be observed in the Te  Vsd plot in graphene. The electron
temperature, Te , depends sensitively on the lattice tempera-
FIG. 4. Electron temperature, Te , as a function of source-drain voltage, Vsd ,
for different lattice temperatures, T, at the fixed electron density, ne , and im-
purity density, ni .
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J. Appl. Phys. 110, 063704 (2011)
ture, T, in graphene in the nonlinear response regime. We find
that the electron temperature, Te , quickly increases with
decreasing lattice temperature, T, at a fixed Vsd . Namely, the
heating of electrons in graphene can occur at a relatively low
electric field and a relatively low T. The lower the lattice tem-
perature is, the stronger the hot-electron effect can be
observed in graphene. The physical reason behind this effect
is that with increasing T, the stronger phonon scattering
occurs. A strong electron-phonon coupling implies a strong
relaxation for excited electrons and, therefore, can result in a
decrease in the electron temperature in graphene. We notice
that this effect was demonstrated in polar semiconductor-
based 2DEG systems where electron  LO-phonon coupling
is the main scattering mechanism to determine Te .19 When
inelastic acoustic-phonon scattering is considered, such an
effect can similarly be observed in graphene. These theoretical
findings reconfirm that inelastic acoustic-phonon scattering
plays an important role in the linear and nonlinear response of
electrons in graphene.
In this study, we have taken the sample parameters and
experimental conditions as close as possible to the experi-
mental situation recently reported.11 We can see that our the-
oretical results are nicely in line with those measured
experimentally with similar sample parameters and experi-
mental conditions.11 However, it should be noted that here
we take different scattering mechanisms in order to explain
and understand the experimental findings. Our model and
analyses show that the inelastic electron  acoustic-phonon
scattering plays a key role in observing the incomplete satu-
ration of current in an ideal graphene system. This mecha-
nism is in contrast to the theoretical explanations previously
proposed.10,11 With the help of our theoretical work, we can
more easily and more generally understand the features of
high-field electronic transport in graphene FET devices. In
graphene, the optical-phonon energy is about 196 meV,
which is much larger than that in the III-V based polar semi-
conductor systems (e.g., in GaAs, hxLO ’ 36:6 meV). An
electron in graphene needs to gain a very large amount of
energy from the driving electric field in order to emit an opti-
cal phonon. Thus, the strong interaction between electrons and
optical phonons can only occur mainly in relatively high-field
regime. As a result, the electron  acoustic-phonon scattering
is relatively strong in graphene when Vsd is not extremely
high. Our numerical results suggest that when Vsd < 3 V, the
electron-phonon scattering is achieved mainly through interac-
tion with acoustic-phonons via deformation potential coupling.
Because the acoustic-phonon energy is hxq  q, depending
nearly linearly on the phonon wavevector, the incompletion of
the current saturation in the I  Vsd relation in graphene is,
therefore, mainly induced by electron  acoustic-phonon inter-
action in the nonlinear response regime. Consequently, the
unique and important features of high-field electronic transport
in graphene can be understood by mainly looking into the con-
sequences of electron coupling with acoustic-phonons.21 In the
present study, we do not take the usual quasi-elastic approxi-
mation25 for electron  acoustic-phonon coupling in graphene.
That is one of the key issues in the present work and is one of
the main reasons why we can reach good agreement with ex-
perimental findings.
 063704-6 Dong, Xu, and Peeters J. Appl. Phys. 110, 063704 (2011)

IV. CONCLUSIONS F.M.P. was supported by the Program of Specially

Appointed Professorship for Foreign Expert of the Chinese
In this paper, we have theoretically studied the high-
Academy of Sciences.
field transport properties of graphene. By investigating the
consequences of electron interactions with impurities,
1
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (2007).
27
T. Ando, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 76, 024712 (2007).
This work was supported by the National Natural Sci- 28
W.-K. Tse and S. Das Sarma, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 236802 (2007).
ence Foundation of China (Grant No. 10974206) and the 29
H.M. Dong, W. Xu, and R.B. Tan, Solid State Commun. 150, 1770
Department of Science and Technology of Yunnan Province. (2010).

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