No Arabic abstract
A new type of self-similar potential is used to study a multibarrier system made of graphene. Such potential is based on the traditional middle third Cantor set rule combined with a scaling of the barriers height. The resulting transmission coefficient for charge carriers, obtained using the quantum relativistic Dirac equation, shows a surprising self-similar structure. The same potential does not lead to a self-similar transmission when applied to the typical semiconductors described by the non-relativistic Schrodinger equation. The proposed system is one of the few examples in which a self-similar structure produces the same pattern in a physical property. The resulting scaling properties are investigated as a function of three parameters: the height of the main barrier, the total length of the system and the generation number of the potential. These scaling properties are first identified individually and then combined to find general analytic scaling expressions.
We study conductance across a twisted bilayer graphene coupled to single-layer graphene leads in two setups: a flake of graphene on top of an infinite graphene ribbon and two overlapping semi-infinite graphene ribbons. We find conductance strongly depends on the angle between the two graphene layers and identify three qualitatively different regimes. For large angles ($theta gtrsim 10^{circ}$) there are strong commensurability effects for incommensurate angles the low energy conductance approaches that of two disconnected layers, while sharp conductance features correlate with commensurate angles with small unit cells. For intermediate angles ($3^{circ}lesssim theta lesssim 10^{circ}$), we find a one-to-one correspondence between certain conductance features and the twist-dependent Van Hove singularities arising at low energies, suggesting conductance measurements can be used to determine the twist angle. For small twist angles ($1^{circ}lesssimthetalesssim 3^{circ}$), commensurate effects seem to be washed out and the conductance becomes a smooth function of the angle. In this regime, conductance can be used to probe the narrow bands, with vanishing conductance regions corresponding to spectral gaps in the density of states, in agreement with recent experimental findings.
Graphitic nitrogen-doped graphene is an excellent platform to study scattering processes of massless Dirac fermions by charged impurities, in which high mobility can be preserved due to the absence of lattice defects through direct substitution of carbon atoms in the graphene lattice by nitrogen atoms. In this work, we report on electrical and magnetotransport measurements of high-quality graphitic nitrogen-doped graphene. We show that the substitutional nitrogen dopants in graphene introduce atomically sharp scatters for electrons but long-range Coulomb scatters for holes and, thus, graphitic nitrogen-doped graphene exhibits clear electron-hole asymmetry in transport properties. Dominant scattering processes of charge carriers in graphitic nitrogen-doped graphene are analyzed. It is shown that the electron-hole asymmetry originates from a distinct difference in intervalley scattering of electrons and holes. We have also carried out the magnetotransport measurements of graphitic nitrogen-doped graphene at different temperatures and the temperature dependences of intervalley scattering, intravalley scattering and phase coherent scattering rates are extracted and discussed. Our results provide an evidence for the electron-hole asymmetry in the intervalley scattering induced by substitutional nitrogen dopants in graphene and shine a light on versatile and potential applications of graphitic nitrogen-doped graphene in electronic and valleytronic devices.
When a gap of tunable size opens at the conic band intersections of graphene, the Berry phase does not vanish abruptly, but progressively decreases as the gap increases. The phase depends on the reciprocal-space path radius, i.e., for a doped system, the Fermi wave vector. The phase and its observable consequences can thus be tuned continuously via gap opening --by a modulating potential induced by strain, epitaxy, or nanostructuration-- and doping adjustment.
Graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (G/$h$-BN) heterostructures offer an excellent platform for developing nanoelectronic devices and for exploring correlated states in graphene under modulation by a periodic superlattice potential. Here, we report on transport measurements of nearly $0^{circ}$-twisted G/$h$-BN heterostructures. The heterostructures investigated are prepared by dry transfer and thermally annealing processes and are in the low mobility regime (approximately $3000~mathrm{cm}^{2}mathrm{V}^{-1}mathrm{s}^{-1}$ at 1.9 K). The replica Dirac spectra and Hofstadter butterfly spectra are observed on the hole transport side, but not on the electron transport side, of the heterostructures. We associate the observed electron-hole asymmetry to the presences of a large difference between the opened gaps in the conduction and valence bands and a strong enhancement in the interband contribution to the conductivity on the electron transport side in the low-mobility G/$h$-BN heterostructures. We also show that the gaps opened at the central Dirac point and the hole-branch secondary Dirac point are large, suggesting the presence of strong graphene-substrate interaction and electron-electron interaction in our G/$h$-BN heterostructures. Our results provide additional helpful insight into the transport mechanism in G/$h$-BN heterostructures.
Large area van der Waals (vdW) thin films are assembled materials consisting of a network of randomly stacked nanosheets. The multi-scale structure and the two-dimensional nature of the building block mean that interfaces naturally play a crucial role in the charge transport of such thin films. While single or few stacked nanosheets (i.e. vdW heterostructures) have been the subject of intensive works, little is known about how charges travel through multilayered, more disordered networks. Here we report a comprehensive study of a prototypical system given by networks of randomly stacked reduced graphene oxide 2D nanosheets, whose chemical and geometrical properties can be controlled independently, permitting to explore percolated networks ranging from a single nanosheet to some billions with room temperature resistivity spanning from 10-5 to 10-1 ohm m. We systematically observe a clear transition between two different regimes at a critical temperature T*: Efros-Shklovskii variable range hopping (ESVRH) below T* and power law (PL) behavior above. Firstly, we demonstrate that the two regimes are strongly correlated with each other, both depending on the charge localization length xi, calculated by ES-VRH model, which corresponds to the characteristic size of overlapping sp2 domains belonging to different nanosheets. Thus, we propose a microscopic model describing the charge transport as a geometrical phase transition, given by the metal-insulator transition associated with the percolation of quasi-1D nanofillers with length xi, showing that the charge transport behavior of the networks is valid for all geometries and defects of the nanosheets, ultimately suggesting a generalized description on vdW and disordered thin films.