Surface polar phonon dominated electron transport in graphene

The effects of surface polar phonons on the electronic transport properties of monolayer graphene are studied by using a Monte Carlo simulation. Specifically, the low-field electron mobility and saturation velocity are examined for different substrates (SiC, SiO2, and HfO2) in comparison to the intrinsic case. While the results show that the low-field mobility can be substantially reduced by the introduction of surface polar phonon scattering, corresponding degradation of the saturation velocity is not observed for all three substrates at room temperature. It is also found that surface polar phonons can influence graphene's electrical resistivity even at low temperature, leading potentially to inaccurate estimation of the acoustic phonon deformation potential constant. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3525606]