Effect of boron nitride defects and charge inhomogeneity on 1/f noise in encapsulated graphene

Low frequency 1/f noise is investigated in graphene, encapsulated between the hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) substrate in dual gated geometry. The overall noise magnitude is smaller as compared to graphene on the Si/SiO2 substrate. The noise amplitude in the hole doped region is independent of carrier density, while in the electron doped region, a pronounced peak is observed at Fermi energy, EF∼90 meV. The physical mechanism of the anomalous noise peak in the electron doped region is attributed to the impurity states originating from the Carbon atom replacing the nitrogen site in the hBN crystal. Furthermore, the noise study near the Dirac point shows a characteristic “M-shape,” which is found to be strongly correlated with the charge inhomogeneity region near the Dirac point.