No Arabic abstract
Using typical experimental techniques it is difficult to separate the effects of carrier density and disorder on the superconducting transition in two dimensions. Using a simple fabrication procedure based on metal layer dewetting, we have produced graphene sheets decorated with a non-percolating network of nanoscale tin clusters. These metal clusters both efficiently dope the graphene substrate and induce long-range superconducting correlations. This allows us to study the superconducting transition at fixed disorder and variable carrier concentration. We find that despite structural inhomogeneity on mesoscopic length scales (10-100 nm), this material behaves electronically as a homogenous dirty superconductor. Our simple self-assembly method establishes graphene as an ideal tunable substrate for studying induced two-dimensional electronic systems at fixed disorder and our technique can readily be extended to other order parameters such as magnetism.
The electronic transport properties of single layer graphene having a dilute coating of indium adatoms has been investigated. Our studies establish that isolated indium atoms donate electrons to graphene and become a source of charged impurity scattering, affecting the conductivity as well as magnetotransport properties of the pristine graphene. Notably, a positive magnetoresistance is observed over a wide density range after In doping. The low field magnetoresistance carries signatures of quantum interference effects which are significantly altered by the adatoms.
Realization of the quantum-spin-Hall effect in graphene devices has remained an outstanding challenge dating back to the inception of the field of topological insulators. Graphenes exceptionally weak spin-orbit coupling -stemming from carbons low mass- poses the primary obstacle. We experimentally and theoretically study artificially enhanced spin-orbit coupling in graphene via random decoration with dilute Bi2Te3 nanoparticles. Remarkably, multi-terminal resistance measurements suggest the presence of helical edge states characteristic of a quantum-spin-Hall phase; the magnetic-field and temperature dependence of the resistance peaks, X-ray photoelectron spectra, scanning tunneling spectroscopy, and first-principles calculations further support this scenario. These observations highlight a pathway to spintronics and quantum-information applications in graphene-based quantum-spin-Hall platforms.
Among its many outstanding properties, graphene supports terahertz surface plasma waves -- sub-wavelength charge density oscillations connected with electromagnetic fields that are tightly localized near the surface[1,2]. When these waves are confined to finite-sized graphene, plasmon resonances emerge that are characterized by alternating charge accumulation at the opposing edges of the graphene. The resonant frequency of such a structure depends on both the size and the surface charge density, and can be electrically tuned throughout the terahertz range by applying a gate voltage[3,4]. The promise of tunable graphene THz plasmonics has yet to be fulfilled, however, because most proposed optoelectronic devices including detectors, filters, and modulators[5-10] desire near total modulation of the absorption or transmission, and require electrical contacts to the graphene -- constraints that are difficult to meet using existing plasmonic structures. We report here a new class of plasmon resonance that occurs in a hybrid graphene-metal structure. The sub-wavelength metal contacts form a capacitive grid for accumulating charge, while the narrow interleaved graphene channels, to first order, serves as a tunable inductive medium, thereby forming a structure that is resonantly-matched to an incident terahertz wave. We experimentally demonstrate resonant absorption near the theoretical maximum in readily-available, large-area graphene, ideal for THz detectors and tunable absorbers. We further predict that the use of high mobility graphene will allow resonant THz transmission near 100%, realizing a tunable THz filter or modulator. The structure is strongly coupled to incident THz radiation, and solves a fundamental problem of how to incorporate a tunable plasmonic channel into a device with electrical contacts.
Near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) is strongly related with many applications such as near-field imaging, thermos-photovoltaics and thermal circuit devices. The active control of NFRHT is of great interest since it provides a degree of tunability by external means. In this work, a magnetically tunable multi-band NFRHT is revealed in a system of two suspended graphene sheets at room temperature. It is found that the single-band spectra for B=0 split into multi-band spectra under an external magnetic field. Dual-band spectra can be realized for a modest magnetic field (e.g., B=4 T). One band is determined by intra-band transitions in the classical regime, which undergoes a blue shift as the chemical potential increases. Meanwhile, the other band is contributed by inter-Landau-level transitions in the quantum regime, which is robust against the change of chemical potentials. For a strong magnetic field (e.g., B=15 T), there is an additional band with the resonant peak appearing at near-zero frequency (microwave regime), stemming from the magneto-plasmon zero modes. The great enhancement of NFRHT at such low frequency has not been found in any previous systems yet. This work may pave a way for multi-band thermal information transfer based on atomically thin graphene sheets.
Motivated by the recent experiments indicating superconductivity in metal-decorated graphene sheets, we investigate their quasi-particle structure within the framework of an effective tight-binding Hamiltonian augmented by appropriate BCS-like pairing terms for p-type order parameter. The normal state band structure of graphene is modified not only through interaction with adsorbed metal atoms, but also due to the folding of bands at Brillouin zone boundaries resulting from a $sqrt{3}timessqrt{3}R30^{circ}$ reconstruction. Several different types of pairing symmetries are analyzed utilizing Nambu-Gorkov Greens function techniques to show that $p+ip$-symmetric nearest-neighbor pairing yields the most enhanced superconducting gap. The character of the order parameter depends on the nature of the atomic orbitals involved in the pairing process and exhibits interesting angular and radial asymmetries. Finally, we suggest a method to distinguish between singlet and triplet type superconductivity in the presence of magnetic substitutional impurities using scanning tunneling spectroscopy.