No Arabic abstract
The long standing controversy concerning the effect of electron - electron interaction on the electrical conductivity of an ideal graphene sheet is settled. Performing the calculation directly in the tight binding approach without the usual prior reduction to the massless Dirac (Weyl) theory, it is found that, to leading order in the interaction strength alpha =e^2/(hbar*v0), the DC conductivity sigma/sigma0=1+C*alpha is significantly enhanced with respect to the independent-electrons result sigma0, i.e. with the value C = 0.26. The ambiguity characterizing the various existing approaches is nontrivial and related to the chiral anomaly in the system. In order to separate the energy scales in a model with massless fermions, contributions from regions of the Brillouin zone away from the Dirac points have to be accounted for. Experimental consequences of the relatively strong interaction effect are briefly discussed.
The electron-electron interactions effects on the shape of the Fermi surface of doped graphene are investigated. The actual discrete nature of the lattice is fully taken into account. A $pi$-band tight-binding model, with nearest-neighbor hopping integrals, is considered. We calculate the self-energy corrections at zero temperature. Long and short range Coulomb interactions are included. The exchange self-energy corrections for graphene preserve the trigonal warping of the Fermi surface topology, although rounding the triangular shape. The band velocity is renormalized to higher value. Corrections induced by a local Coulomb interaction, calculated by second order perturbation theory, do deform anisotropically the Fermi surface shape. Results are compared to experimental observations and to other theoretical results.
The interplay of electron-phonon (el-ph) and electron-electron (el-el) interactions in epitaxial graphene is studied by directly probing its electronic structure. We found a strong coupling of electrons to the soft part of the A1g phonon evident by a kink at 150+/-15 meV, while the coupling of electrons to another expected phonon E2g at 195 meV can only be barely detected. The possible role of the el-el interaction to account for the enhanced coupling of electrons to the A1g phonon, and the contribution of el-ph interaction to the linear imaginary part of the self energy at high binding energy are also discussed. Our results reveal the dominant role of the A1g phonon in the el-ph interaction in graphene, and highlight the important interplay of el-el and el-ph interactions in the self energy of graphene.
Strongly correlated electron liquids which occur in quantizing magnetic fields reveal a cornucopia of fascinating quantum phenomena such as fractionally charged quasiparticles, anyonic statistics, topological order, and many others. Probing these effects in GaAs-based systems, where electron interactions are relatively weak, requires sub-kelvin temperatures and record-high electron mobilities, rendering some of the most interesting states too fragile and difficult to access. This prompted a quest for new high-mobility systems with stronger electron interactions. Recently, fractional-quantized Hall effect was observed in suspended graphene (SG), a free-standing monolayer of carbon, where it was found to persist up to T=10 K. The best results in those experiments were obtained on micron-size flakes, on which only two-terminal transport measurements could be performed. Here we pose and solve the problem of extracting transport coefficients of a fractional quantum Hall state from the two-terminal conductance. We develop a method, based on the conformal invariance of two-dimensional magnetotransport, and illustrate its use by analyzing the measurements on SG. From the temperature dependence of longitudinal conductivity, extracted from the measured two-terminal conductance, we estimate the energy gap of quasiparticle excitations in the fractional-quantized nu=1/3 state. The gap is found to be significantly larger than in GaAs-based structures, signaling much stronger electron interactions in suspended graphene. Our approach provides a new tool for the studies of quantum transport in suspended graphene and other nanoscale systems.
We investigate the magnetotransport in large area graphene Hall bars epitaxially grown on silicon carbide. In the intermediate field regime between weak localization and Landau quantization the observed temperature-dependent parabolic magnetoresistivity (MR) is a manifestation of the electron-electron interaction (EEI). We can consistently describe the data with a model for diffusive (magneto)transport that also includes magnetic-field dependent effects originating from ballistic time scales. We find an excellent agreement between the experimentally observed temperature dependence of MR and the theory of EEI in the diffusive regime. We can further assign a temperature-driven crossover to the reduction of the multiplet modes contributing to EEI from 7 to 3 due to intervalley scattering. In addition, we find a temperature independent ballistic contribution to the MR in classically strong magnetic fields.
We review the problem of electron-electron interactions in graphene. Starting from the screening of long range interactions in these systems, we discuss the existence of an emerging Dirac liquid of Lorentz invariant quasi-particles in the weak coupling regime, and strongly correlated electronic states in the strong coupling regime. We also analyze the analogy and connections between the many-body problem and the Coulomb impurity problem. The problem of the magnetic instability and Kondo effect of impurities and/or adatoms in graphene is also discussed in analogy with classical models of many-body effects in ordinary metals. We show that Lorentz invariance plays a fundamental role and leads to effects that span the whole spectrum, from the ultraviolet to the infrared. The effect of an emerging Lorentz invariance is also discussed in the context of finite size and edge effects as well as mesoscopic physics. We also briefly discuss the effects of strong magnetic fields in single layers and review some of the main aspects of the many-body problem in graphene bilayers. In addition to reviewing the fully understood aspects of the many-body problem in graphene, we show that a plethora of interesting issues remain open, both theoretically and experimentally, and that the field of graphene research is still exciting and vibrant.