No Arabic abstract
We put forward a concept to create highly collimated, non-dispersive electron beams in pseudo-relativistic Dirac materials such as graphene or topological insulator surfaces. Combining negative refraction and Klein collimation at a parabolic pn junction, the proposed lens generates beams, as narrow as the focal length, that stay focused over scales of several microns and can be steered by a magnetic field without losing collimation. We demonstrate the lens capabilities by applying it to two paradigmatic settings of graphene electron optics: We propose a setup for observing high-resolution angle-dependent Klein tunneling, and, exploiting the intimate quantum-to-classical correspondence of these focused electron waves, we consider high-fidelity transverse magnetic focusing accompanied by simulations for current mapping through scanning gate microscopy. Our proposal opens up new perspectives for next-generation graphene electron optics experiments.
Designing high-finesse resonant cavities for electronic waves faces challenges due to short electron coherence lengths in solids. Previous approaches, e.g. the seminal nanometer-sized quantum corrals, depend on careful positioning of adatoms at clean surfaces. Here we demonstrate an entirely different approach, inspired by the peculiar acoustic phenomena in whispering galleries. Taking advantage of graphenes unique properties, namely gate-tunable light-like carriers, we create Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) resonators defined by circular pn-junctions, induced by a scanning tunneling probe. We can tune the resonator size and the carrier concentration under the probe in a back-gated graphene device over a wide range, independently and in situ. The confined modes, revealed through characteristic resonances in the tunneling spectrum, originate from Klein scattering at pn junction boundaries. The WGM-type confinement and resonances are a new addition to the quantum electron-optics toolbox, paving the way to real-world electronic lenses and resonators.
The superconducting pairing of electrons in doped graphene due to in-plane and out-of-plane phonons is considered. It is shown that the structure of the order parameter in the valley space substantially affects conditions of the pairing. Electron-hole pairing in graphene bilayer in the strong coupling regime is also considered. Taking into account retardation of the screened Coulomb pairing potential shows a significant competition between the electron-hole direct attraction and their repulsion due to virtual plasmons and single-particle excitations.
Electron interactions are usually probed indirectly, through their impact on transport coefficients. Here we describe a direct scheme that, in principle, gives access to the full angle dependence of carrier scattering in 2D Fermi gases. The latter is particularly interesting, because, due to the dominant role of head-on collisions, carrier scattering generates tightly focused fermionic jets. We predict a jet-dominated signal for the magnetic steering geometry, that appears at classically weak $B$-fields, much lower than the free-particle focusing fields. The effect is anti-Lorentz in sign, producing a peak at the field polarity for which the free-particle focusing does not occur. The steering signal measured vs. $B$ yields detailed information on the angular structure of fermionic jets.
Controlling directional emission of nanophotonic radiation sources is fundamental to tailor radiation-matter interaction and to conceive highly efficient nanophotonic devices for on-chip wireless communication and information processing. Nanoantennas coupled to quantum emitters have proven to be very efficient radiation routers, while electrical control of unidirectional emission has been achieved through inelastic tunneling of electrons. Here we prove that the radiation emitted from the interaction of a high-energy electron beam with a graphene-nanoparticle composite has beaming directions which can be made to continuously span the full circle even through small variations of the graphene Fermi energy. Emission directionality stems from the interference between the double cone shaped electron transition radiation and the nanoparticle dipolar diffraction radiation. Tunability is enabled since the interference is ruled by the nanoparticle dipole moment whose amplitude and phase are driven by the hybrid plasmonic resonances of the composite and the absolute phase of the graphene plasmonic polariton launched by the electron, respectively. The flexibility of our method provides a way to exploit graphene plasmon physics to conceive improved nanosources with ultrafast reconfigurable radiation patterns.
We separate localization and interaction effects in epitaxial graphene devices grown on the C-face of a 4H-SiC substrate by analyzing the low temperature conductivities. Weak localization and antilocalization are extracted at low magnetic fields, after elimination of a geometric magnetoresistance and subtraction of the magnetic field dependent Drude conductivity. The electron electron interaction correction is extracted at higher magnetic fields, where localization effects disappear. Both phenomena are weak but sizable and of the same order of magnitude. If compared to graphene on silicon dioxide, electron electron interaction on epitaxial graphene are not significantly reduced by the larger dielectric constant of the SiC substrate.