Controlling electron-phonon interactions in graphene at ultrahigh carrier densities

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Dec 17;105(25):256805. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.256805. Epub 2010 Dec 13.

Abstract

We report on the temperature dependent electron transport in graphene at different carrier densities n. Employing an electrolytic gate, we demonstrate that n can be adjusted up to 4 × 10(14) cm(-2) for both electrons and holes. The measured sample resistivity ρ increases linearly with temperature T in the high temperature limit, indicating that a quasiclassical phonon distribution is responsible for the electron scattering. As T decreases, the resistivity decreases more rapidly following ρ(T) ∼ T(4). This low temperature behavior can be described by a Bloch-Grüneisen model taking into account the quantum distribution of the two-dimensional acoustic phonons in graphene. We map out the density dependence of the characteristic temperature Θ(BG) defining the crossover between the two distinct regimes, and show that, for all n, ρ(T) scales as a universal function of the normalized temperature T/Θ(BG).