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Register a new userInteractions and magnetic moments near vacancies and resonant impurities in graphene
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Francisco (Paco) Guinea
Publication date
2011
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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The effect of electronic interactions in graphene with vacancies or resonant scatterers is investigated. We apply dynamical mean-field theory in combination with quantum Monte Carlo simulations, which allow us to treat non-perturbatively quantum fluctuations beyond Hartree-Fock approximations. The interactions narrow the width of the resonance and induce a Curie magnetic susceptibility, signaling the formation of local moments. The absence of saturation of the susceptibility at low temperatures suggests that the coupling between the local moment and the conduction electrons is ferromagnetic.
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In normal metals, the magnetic moment of impurity spins disappears below a characteristic Kondo temperature, TK, where coupling with the conduction-band electrons produces an entangled state that screens the local moment. In contrast, moments embedded in insulators remain unscreened at all temperatures. This raises the question about the fate of magnetic moments in intermediate, pseudogap systems, such as graphene. In these systems theory predicts a quantum phase-transition at a critical coupling strength which separates a local magnetic-moment phase from a Kondo screened phase. However, attempts to experimentally confirm these predictions and their intriguing consequences such as the ability to electrostatically control magnetic moments, have thus far been elusive. Here we report the observation of Kondo screening and the quantum phase-transition between screened and unscreened phases of vacancy magnetic-moments in graphene. Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), spectroscopy (STS) and numerical renormalization group (NRG) calculations, we identified Kondo screening by its spectroscopic signature and mapped the phase-transition as a function of coupling strength and chemical potential. We show that this transition makes it possible to turn the magnetic-moment on and off electrostatically through a gate voltage or mechanically through variations in local curvature.
Using first-principles plane wave calculations we predict that electronic and magnetic properties of graphene nanoribbons can be affected by defect-induced itinerant states. The band gaps of armchair nanoribbons can be modified by hydrogen saturated holes. Defects due to periodically repeating vacancy or divacancies induce metallization, as well as magnetization in non-magnetic semiconducting nanoribbons due to the spin-polarization of local defect states. Antiferromagnetic ground state of semiconducting zigzag ribbons can change to ferrimagnetic state upon creation of vacancy defects, which reconstruct and interact with edge states. Even more remarkable is that all these effects of vacancy defects are found to depend on their geometry and position relative to edges. It is shown that these effects can, in fact, be realized without really creating defects.
The effective spin exchange coupling between impurities (adatoms) on graphene mediated by conduction electrons is studied as a function of the strength of the potential part of the on-site energy $U$ of the electron-adatom interaction. With increasing $U$, the exchange coupling becomes long-range, determined largely by the impurity levels with energies close to the Dirac points. When adatoms reside on opposite sublattices, their exchange coupling, normally antiferromagnetic, becomes ferromagnetic and resonantly enhanced at a specific distance where an impurity level crosses the Dirac point.
Graphene has been identified as a promising material with numerous applications, particularly in spintronics. In this paper we investigate the peculiar features of spin excitations of magnetic units deposited on graphene nanoribbons and how they can couple through a dynamical interaction mediated by spin currents. We examine in detail the spin lifetimes and identify a pattern caused by vanishing density of states sites in pristine ribbons with armchair borders. Impurities located on these sites become practically invisible to the interaction, but can be made accessible by a gate voltage or doping. We also demonstrate that the coupling between impurities can be turned on or off using this characteristic, which may be used to control the transfer of information in transistor-like devices.
We present a theoretical study using density functional calculations of the structural, electronic and magnetic properties of 3d transition metal, noble metal and Zn atoms interacting with carbon monovacancies in graphene. We pay special attention to the electronic and magnetic properties of these substitutional impurities and found that they can be fully understood using a simple model based on the hybridization between the states of the metal atom, particularly the d shell, and the defect levels associated with an unreconstructed D3h carbon vacancy. We identify three different regimes associated with the occupation of different carbon-metal hybridized electronic levels: (i) bonding states are completely filled for Sc and Ti, and these impurities are non-magnetic; (ii) the non-bonding d shell is partially occupied for V, Cr and Mn and, correspondingly, these impurties present large and localized spin moments; (iii) antibonding states with increasing carbon character are progressively filled for Co, Ni, the noble metals and Zn. The spin moments of these impurities oscillate between 0 and 1 Bohr magnetons and are increasingly delocalized. The substitutional Zn suffers a Jahn-Teller-like distortion from the C3v symmetry and, as a consequence, has a zero spin moment. Fe occupies a distinct position at the border between regimes (ii) and (iii) and shows a more complex behavior: while is non-magnetic at the level of GGA calculations, its spin moment can be switched on using GGA+U calculations with moderate values of the U parameter.
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