Low-frequency noise with a spectral density that depends inversely on frequency has been observed in a wide variety of systems including current fluctuations in resistors, intensity fluctuations in music and signals in human cognition. In electronics, the phenomenon, which is known as 1/f noise, flicker noise or excess noise, hampers the operation of numerous devices and circuits, and can be a significant impediment to the development of practical applications from new materials. Graphene offers unique opportunities for studying 1/f noise because of its two-dimensional structure and widely tunable two-dimensional carrier concentration. The creation of practical graphene-based devices will also depend on our ability to understand and control the low-frequency noise in this material system. Here, the characteristic features of 1/f noise in graphene and few-layer graphene are reviewed, and the implications of such noise for the development of graphene-based electronics including high-frequency devices and sensors are examined.

Low-frequency 1/ f noise in graphene devices

Methods for down converting a modulated carrier signal to a demodulated baseband signal are described herein The method requires that a first portion of energy is transferred from the modulated carrier signal, and stored at a first storage device when a first switch is on At least some of the energy stored in the first storage device is discharged when the first switch is off The method further comprises transferring a second portion of energy from the modulated carrier signal, storing at a second storage device the second portion of transferred energy when a second switch is on, and discharging at least some of the energy stored in the second storage device when the second switch is off A down-converted in-phase baseband signal portion is generated from the energy accumulated in the first storage device while both the charging and the discharging occurs, and a down-converted inverted in-phase baseband signal portion is generated from the energy accumulated in the second storage device while both the charging and the discharging occurs, and the two portions are combined with a first differential amplifier circuit to form a down-converted differential in-phase baseband signal

Method and system for down-converting an electromagnetic signal

Significant improvements in terms of reduced power consumption and increased bandwidth are obtained if a digital predistortion linearizer is implemented with an application specific digital signal processor. This paper investigates the quantization effects in different parts of a table based complex gain predistortion linearizer. The analysis can be used to optimize the predistortion linearizer with respect to word length based on the knowledge of the RF amplifier gain characteristic, the probability density function for the modulation scheme and the maximum allowable adjacent channel interference level. A predistorter chip is described that has been designed using the analysis. The chip has been fabricated and tested. Compared with a standard digital signal processing (DSP) solution it provides seven times higher bandwidth but consumes only 10% of the power.

Quantization analysis and design of a digital predistortion linearizer for RF power amplifiers

We have investigated low-frequency 1/f noise in the boron nitride–graphene–boron nitride heterostructure field-effect transistors on Si/SiO2 substrates (f is a frequency). The device channel was implemented with a single layer graphene encased between two layers of hexagonal boron nitride. The transistors had the charge carrier mobility in the range from ∼30 000 to ∼36 000 cm2/Vs at room temperature. It was established that the noise spectral density normalized to the channel area in such devices can be suppressed to ∼5 × 10−9 μm2 Hz−1, which is a factor of ×5 – ×10 lower than that in non-encapsulated graphene devices on Si/SiO2. The physical mechanism of noise suppression was attributed to screening of the charge carriers in the channel from traps in SiO2 gate dielectric and surface defects. The obtained results are important for the electronic and optoelectronic applications of graphene.

Suppression of 1/f noise in near-ballistic h-BN-graphene-h-BN heterostructure field-effect transistors

Low-frequency noise is a significant limitation on the performance of nanoscale electronic devices. This limitation is especially important for devices based on two-dimensional (2D) materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), which have atomically thin bodies and, hence, are severely affected by surface contaminants. Here, we investigate the low-frequency noise of transistors based on molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), which is a typical example of TMD. The noise measurements performed on bilayer MoS2 channel transistors show a noise peak in the gate-voltage dependence data, which has also been reported for graphene. To understand the peak, a trap decay-time based model is developed by revisiting the carrier number fluctuation model. Our analysis reveals that the peak originates from the fact that the decay time of the traps for a 2D device channel is governed by the van der Waals bonds between the 2D material and the surroundings. Our model is generic to all 2D materials and can be ...

Low-Frequency Noise in Bilayer MoS2 Transistor

A systematic and unified treatment of thermal noise from an engineering viewpoint. This reference presents the methods used for characterizing and measuring thermal noise in RF communication systems and components. Defines power gain and its applicability to noise problems, shows how to calculate the final signal-to-noise ratio in RF systems using the known gains and noise temperatures of individual system building blocks, and discusses the dependence of dynamic range on the noise factor and noise temperature of a given transducer.

Raoul Pettai

Papers

Noise in Receiving Systems