Disorder from the Bulk Ionic Liquid in Electric Double Layer Transistors.

Ionic liquid gating has a number of advantages over solid-state gating, especially for flexible or transparent devices and for applications requiring high carrier densities. However, the large number of charged ions near the channel inevitably results in Coulomb scattering, which limits the carrier mobility in otherwise clean systems. We develop a model for this Coulomb scattering.

Voltage-Controlled Interfacial Layering in an Ionic Liquid on SrTiO3.

One prominent structural feature of ionic liquids near surfaces is formation of alternating layers of anions and cations. However, how this layering responds to an applied potential is poorly understood. We focus on the structure of 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium tris(pentafluoroethyl) trifluorophosphate (BMPY-FAP) near the surface of a strontium titanate (SrTiO3) electric double-layer transistor.

A high-mobility electronic system at an electrolyte-gated oxide surface.

Electrolyte gating is a powerful technique for accumulating large carrier densities at a surface. Yet this approach suffers from significant sources of disorder: electrochemical reactions can damage or alter the sample, and the ions of the electrolyte and various dissolved contaminants sit Angstroms from the electron system. Accordingly, electrolyte gating is well suited to studies of superconductivity and other phenomena robust to disorder, but of limited use when reactions or disorder must be avoided.