Graphene with atomic thickness possesses excellent mechanical and electrical properties, which hold great potential for high performance pressure sensing. The exposed electron of graphene is always cross-sensitive to any pollution absorbed or desorbed on the surface, from which the long-term stability of the graphene pressure sensor suffers a lot. This is one of the main obstacles towards graphene commercial applications. In this paper, we utilized polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)/graphene heterostructure to isolate graphene from the ambient environment and enhance its strength simultaneously. PMMA/graphene pressure sensors, with the finite-depth cavities and the through-hole cavities separately, were made for comparative study. The through-hole device obtained a comparable sensitivity per unit area to the state of the art of the bare graphene pressure sensor, since there were no leaking cracks or defects. Both the sensitivity and stability of the through-hole sensor are better than those of the sensor with 285-nm-deep cavities, which is due to the sealed gas effect in the pressure cavity. A modified piezoresistive model was derived by considering the pressure change of the sealed gas in the pressure cavity. The calculated result of the new model is consistent with the experimental results. Our findings point out a promising route for performance optimization of graphene pressure sensors.
Defects in the hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) layer can facilitate the tunneling current through thick h-BN tunneling barriers. We have investigated such current-mediating defects as local probes for materials in two dimensional heterostructure stacks. Besides IV characteristics and negative differential conductance, we have characterized the electrical properties of h-BN defects in vertical graphene-h-BN-Cr/Au tunnel junctions in terms of low frequency current noise. Our results indicate a charge sensitivity of at 10 Hz, which is equal to good metallic single electron transistors. The noise spectra at low frequency are governed by a few two-level fluctuators. For variations in the electrochemical potential, we achieve a sensitivity of .
We demonstrate a fabrication scheme for clean suspended structures using chemical-vapor-deposition-grown graphene and a dry transfer method on lift-off-resist-coated substrates to facilitate suspended graphene nanoelectronic devices for technology applications. It encompasses the demands for scalable fabrication as well as for ultra-fast response due to weak coupling to environment. The fabricated devices exhibited initially a weak field-effect response with substantial positive ($p$) doping which transformed into weak negative ($n$) doping upon current annealing at the temperature of 4 Kelvin. With increased annealing current, $n$-doping gradually decreased while the Dirac peak position approached zero in gate voltage. An ultra-low residual charge density of $9\times10^8 \mathrm{ \ cm^{-2}}$ and a mobility of $1.9 \times 10^5 \mathrm{\ cm^2/Vs}$ were observed. Our samples display clear Fabry-P\'{e}rot (FP) conductance oscillation which indicates ballistic electron transport. The spacing of the FP oscillations are found to depend on the charge density in a manner that agrees with theoretical modeling based on Klein tunneling of Dirac particles. The ultra-low residual charge, the FP oscillations with density dependent period, and the high mobility prove excellent quality of our suspended graphene devices. Owing to its simplicity, scalability and robustness, this fabrication scheme enhances possibilities for production of suspended, high-quality, two-dimensional-material structures for novel electronic applications.