Transitions of electrical conduction mechanism in graphene flake van der Waals thin film

The electrical conduction mechanism in 2D van der Waals (vdW) thin film made of graphene flakes can be characterized by the variable range hopping (VRH) over a wide range of temperature, followed by a transition into an Arrhenius type conduction at the higher temperature. Regarding the nature of the subsequent Arrhenius type conduction, a lack of consensus exists between the nearest neighbor hopping (NNH) and the band conduction (BC). We discuss how to assess the transition in conduction mechanism based on the transient behavior of the reduced activation energy ( W ) and the structure of electronic density of states (DOS) of the sample. With a multi-channel conduction model, we show that the transition from VRH to BC always accompany an increase in W , which is absent in the transition from VRH to NNH. Also discussed are the peculiarities of VRH in vdW thin film and what they imply towards the properties of defects. In most vdW flake thin films, the spread of defect band in DOS is governed by the intrinsic defect energy not by the Coulomb interaction between defects. It can further be deduced that the gap in DOS near Fermi level associated with Efros-Shklovskii VRH observed in vdW film is not a Coulomb gap as found in weakly doped crystalline semiconductor, but inherent in the distribution of defect intrinsic energy. For the graphene flake thin film we synthesized, Mott VRH and BC are identified.