Variability Effects in Carbon-based Devices

An often-challenged question about nanoscale devices is the variability issue resulting from either the environment or the material itself. With no exceptions, carbon-based devices usually have enhanced variability effects inherent from their large surface-volume ratios in low-dimensions. Adversely, these variabilities cause device fluctuations and limit the reliability in large-scale production. On the other hand, however, these large variability effects can be beneficial for applications in metrology, when the large fluctuations in nanoscale devices can be implemented as the ‘signal’ to achieve high sensitivities. This talk surveys the research of several typical variabilities in carbon-based devices, from the consideration of device designs in the presence of these variabilities to their implementation and potential applications as novel probing mechanisms. Discussions include the devices made of carbon nanotube, graphene and graphene nanoribbon, covering one-dimensional, two-dimensional and quasi-one-dimensional carbon-based systems.

Biography: Guangyu Xu received B.S. in Fundamental Science (Mathematics and Physics) and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University, China in 2003 and 2006, respectively. From 2006, he joined Prof. Kang L.Wang's group at UCLA for his Ph. D. research.