Photoinduced Hysteresis of Graphene Field-Effect Transistors Due to Hydrogen-Complexed Defects in Silicon Dioxide

Photoinduced hysteresis (PIH) of graphene field-effect transistors (G-FETs) has attracted attention because of its potential in developing photoelectronic or nonvolatile memory devices. In this work, we focused on the role of SiO₂ dielectric layer on PIH, where G-FETs have only a SiO₂ dielectric layer. Adsorbates are effectively removed before the PIH test. The effects of laser wavelength, laser power density, and temperature on the PIH are systematically investigated. The PIH is significantly enhanced by increasing the hydrogen flow in a hydrogen-atmosphere device thermal annealing. This strongly suggests proton-related defects that play a key role. The pure electronic process for PIH is further ruled out by the significant dependence of the doping rate on the temperature. A mechanism of PIH based on proton generation after hole trapping at [O₃≡Si-H] is proposed. The proposed mechanism is well-supported by our experimental data: (1) the observed threshold photon energy for PIH is between 2.76 and 2.34 eV, which is close to the energy barrier for [O₃≡Si-H], releasing a proton. (2) No obvious carrier mobility degradation after the PIH process suggests that the bulk defects in SiO₂ are the major contributors rather than graphene/SiO₂ interface defects. (3) The dependence of the doping rate on the temperature and the laser power density matches a theoretical model based on the random hopping of H⁺. The results in this work are also valuable for the study of degradation of other oxide dielectric materials in various field-effect transistors.