Displacement-Field-Induced Ionization of Defect States in High-Quality hBN

Abstract

Encapsulation of two-dimensional (2D) materials with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is widely used to fabricate ultraclean van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures for optoelectronic and quantum transport studies. These devices are often operated under strong out-of-plane displacement fields that tune the electronic properties of the active 2D material, while the surrounding hBN is typically assumed to remain electronically inert. This assumption, however, neglects defect states that are present even in high-quality hBN crystals. Here, we probe their response to the applied displacement field using monolayer graphene encapsulated between hBN crystals as a sensitive charge sensor. Increasing the displacement field induces notable charge transfer between graphene and hBN, producing additional electron doping of 10-20x10^9 cm^(-2) even at the moderate displacement field (~0.5 V nm^(-1)), while simultaneously increasing carrier-density inhomogeneity of the graphene layer. Both effects are consistent with ionization of defect states within the hBN bandgap, with the bulk density ~1-7x10^(-5) nm^(-3) varying across different hBN crystals. Our results show that displacement-field-induced defect ionization in hBN can modify the electronic response of vdW heterostructures, with direct implications for device design and interpretation of experiments.

The use of coherent states in the excitation and ionization of atoms by a short symmetric pulse
Jorge E. Miraglia
arXiv19 Sep 2026PreprintarXiv licenceFull textAtomic, molecular & optical physicsarXiv
Bringing Dark States to Light after Frustrated Tunneling Ionization
Yu He, Eleni Tzima, Gergana D. Borisova +6
arXiv5 Nov 2026PreprintarXiv licenceFull textAtomic, molecular & optical physics Optics & photonicsarXiv
Displacement-noise-free gravitational-wave detector using quantum tomography of photon orbital angular momentum states
Haorong Wu, Xilong Fan, Lixiang Chen
arXiv15 Oct 2026PreprintarXiv licenceFull textInstrumentation & methods Applied physics & instrumentationarXiv
CV-QKD with noisy coherent states and realistic displacement receivers
L. F. Melo, J. J. Lacerda, John A. Mora Rodríguez +1
arXiv7 Oct 2026PreprintCC BY 4.0Full textQuantum physics & quantum informationarXiv
Displacement field stabilizes even-denominator and partonic fractional quantum Hall states in the 𝒩=2 Landau levels of Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene
Rakesh K. Dora, Udit Khanna, Ajit C. Balram
arXiv16 Sep 2026PreprintCC BY 4.0Full textCondensed matterarXiv

Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{begichev2026displacementfieldinduced,
  title = {{Displacement-Field-Induced Ionization of Defect States in High-Quality hBN}},
  author = {Ilia Begichev and Daria Belotcerkovtceva and Iakov Reznikov and Sergey Slizovsky and Weijie Lu and Nansi Zhou and Ian Babich and Makars Siskins and Kostya S. Novoselov and Vladimir I. Falko and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi and Alexey I. Berdyugin},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.11297},
  eprint = {2610.11297},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.11297},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Displacement-Field-Induced Ionization of Defect States in High-Quality hBN
AU  - Ilia Begichev
AU  - Daria Belotcerkovtceva
AU  - Iakov Reznikov
AU  - Sergey Slizovsky
AU  - Weijie Lu
AU  - Nansi Zhou
AU  - Ian Babich
AU  - Makars Siskins
AU  - Kostya S. Novoselov
AU  - Vladimir I. Falko
AU  - Kenji Watanabe
AU  - Takashi Taniguchi
AU  - Alexey I. Berdyugin
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/08
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.11297
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.11297
AB  - Encapsulation of two-dimensional (2D) materials with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is widely used to fabricate ultraclean van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures for optoelectronic and quantum transport studies. These devices are often operated under strong out-of-plane displacement fields that tune the electronic properties of the active 2D material, while the surrounding hBN is typically assumed to remain electronically inert. This assumption, however, neglects defect states that are present even in high-quality hBN crystals. Here, we probe their response to the applied displacement field using monolayer graphene encapsulated between hBN crystals as a sensitive charge sensor. Increasing the displacement field induces notable charge transfer between graphene and hBN, producing additional electron doping of 10-20x10^9 cm^(-2) even at the moderate displacement field (~0.5 V nm^(-1)), while simultaneously increasing carrier-density inhomogeneity of the graphene layer. Both effects are consistent with ionization of defect states within the hBN bandgap, with the bulk density ~1-7x10^(-5) nm^(-3) varying across different hBN crystals. Our results show that displacement-field-induced defect ionization in hBN can modify the electronic response of vdW heterostructures, with direct implications for device design and interpretation of experiments.
ER  -

Abstract

Related

Cite