Detecting Electric Dipoles Interaction at the Interface of Ferroelectric and Electrolyte Using Graphene Field Effect Transistors

Chunrui Ma; Rongtao Lu; Guangliang Hu; Jinsheng Han; Ming Liu; Jun Li; Judy Wu

doi:10.1021/acsami.6b14380

Detecting Electric Dipoles Interaction at the Interface of Ferroelectric and Electrolyte Using Graphene Field Effect Transistors

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Feb 1;9(4):4244-4252. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b14380. Epub 2017 Jan 18.

Authors

Chunrui Ma^{1

2}, Rongtao Lu², Guangliang Hu³, Jinsheng Han³, Ming Liu³, Jun Li⁴, Judy Wu²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Shannxi 710049, P. R. China.
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Kansas , Lawrence, Kansas 66045, United States.
³ School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University , Xi'an 710049, China.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Kansas State University , Manhattan, Kansas 66506, United States.

PMID: 28058829
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b14380

Abstract

Graphene was inserted into the interface between electric dipole layers from DEME-TFSI ionic liquid (top-gate) and ferroelectric Pb_0.92La_0.08Zr_0.52Ti_0.48O₃ (PLZT, back-gate) to probe the interface dipole-dipole interaction in response to DC and pulsed gate voltages. A highly complicated behavior of the interface dipole-dipole interaction has been revealed as a combination of electrostatic and electrochemical effects. The interfacial polar molecules in the DEME-TFSI electrical double layer are pinned with assistance from the PLZT back-gate in response to a DC top-gate pump, leading to strong nonlinear electrochemical behavior. In contrast, depinning of these molecules can be facilitated by a faster pulsed top-gate pump, which results in a characteristic linear electrostatic behavior. This result not only sheds light on the dynamic dipole-dipole interactions on the interface between functional materials but also prototypes a unique pump and probe approach using graphene field effect transistors to detect the interface dipole-dipole interaction.

Keywords: dipole interaction; electrochemical effect; ferroelectric thin film; graphene; ionic liquid.