Graphene on boron nitride microwave transistors driven by graphene nanoribbon back-gates

We have designed ultra-thin graphene microwave transistors by using pre-patterned metal or graphene nanoribbon back-gates and hexagonal boron nitride as a dielectric substrate. Despite the inhomogeneities induced by the graphene transfer process, we show that it is possible to operate these types of devices across a broad range of microwave frequencies. For the graphene nanoribbon gates, we observe a deviation of the current gain from the usual 1/f trend that can be attributed to the large gate resistance of these systems as we demonstrate with our small-signal model. The scattering parameter analysis shows a very limited back-action from the channel onto the graphene nanoribbon gates. Our work thus proves that graphene microwave transistors could be driven by graphene nanoribbon gates.