No Arabic abstract
We investigate the optical response of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) using the broadband nonlinear generation and detection capabilities of nanoscale junctions created at the LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interface. GNR nanoclusters measured to be as small as 1-2 GNRs in size are deposited on the LaAlO$_3$ surface with an atomic force microscope tip. Time-resolved nonlinear optical probes of GNR nanoclusters reveal a strong, gate-tunable second and third harmonic response, as well as strong extinction of visible to near-infrared (VIS-NIR) light at distinct wavelengths, similar to previous reports with graphene.
Pristine, undoped graphene has a constant absorption of 2.3 % across the visible to near-infrared (VIS-NIR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Under certain conditions, such as nanostructuring and intense gating, graphene can interact more robustly with VIS-NIR light and exhibit a large nonlinear optical response. Here, we explore the optical properties of graphene/LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ nanostructures, where nanojunctions formed at the LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interface enable large (~10$^8$ V/m) electric fields to be applied to graphene over a scale of ~10 nm. Upon illumination with ultrafast VIS-NIR light, graphene/LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ nanostructures produce broadband THz emission as well as a sum-frequency generated (SFG) response. Strong spectrally sharp, gate-tunable extinction features (>99.99%) are observed in both the VIS-NIR and SFG regions alongside significant intensification of the nonlinear response. The observed gate-tunable strong graphene-light interaction and nonlinear optical response are of fundamental interest and open the way for future exploitation in graphene-based optical devices.
Materials with massless Dirac fermions can possess exceptionally strong and widely tunable optical nonlinearities. Experiments on graphene monolayer have indeed found very large third-order nonlinear responses, but the reported variation of the nonlinear optical coefficient by orders of magnitude is not yet understood. A large part of the difficulty is the lack of information on how doping or chemical potential affects the different nonlinear optical processes. Here we report the first experimental study, in corroboration with theory, on third harmonic generation (THG) and four-wave mixing (FWM) in graphene that has its chemical potential tuned by ion-gel gating. THG was seen to have enhanced by ~30 times when pristine graphene was heavily doped, while difference-frequency FWM appeared just the opposite. The latter was found to have a strong divergence toward degenerate FWM in undoped graphene, leading to a giant third-order nonlinearity. These truly amazing characteristics of graphene come from the possibility to gate-control the chemical potential, which selectively switches on and off one- and multi-photon resonant transitions that coherently contribute to the optical nonlinearity, and therefore can be utilized to develop graphene-based nonlinear optoelectronic devices.
We have performed density functional theory calculations of graphene decorated with carbon adatoms, which bind at the bridge site of a C--C bond. Earlier studies have shown that the C adatoms have magnetic moments and have suggested the possibility of ferromagnetism with high Curie temperature. Here we propose to use a gate voltage to fine tune the magnetic moments from zero to 1$mu_B$ while changing the magnetic coupling from antiferromagnetism to ferromagnetism and again to antiferromagnetism. These results are rationalized within the Stoner and RKKY models. When the SCAN meta-GGA correction is used, the magnetic moments for zero gate voltage are reduced and the Stoner band ferromagnetism is slightly weakened in the ferromagnetic region.
We report an efficient technique to induce gate-tunable two-dimensional superlattices in graphene by the combined action of a back gate and a few-layer graphene patterned bottom gate complementary to existing methods. The patterned gates in our approach can be easily fabricated and implemented in van der Waals stacking procedures allowing flexible use of superlattices with arbitrary geometry. In transport measurements on a superlattice with lattice constant $a=40$ nm well pronounced satellite Dirac points and signatures of the Hofstadter butterfly including a non-monotonic quantum Hall response are observed. Furthermore, the experimental results are accurately reproduced in transport simulations and show good agreement with features in the calculated band structure. Overall, we present a comprehensive picture of graphene-based superlattices, featuring a broad range of miniband effects, both in experiment and in theoretical modeling. The presented technique is suitable for studying more advanced geometries which are not accessible by other methods.
We analyze the effect of screening provided by the additional graphene layer in double layer graphene heterostructures (DLGs) on transport characteristics of DLG devices in the metallic regime. The effect of gate-tunable charge density in the additional layer is two-fold: it provides screening of the long-range potential of charged defects in the system, and screens out Coulomb interactions between charge carriers. We find that the efficiency of defect charge screening is strongly dependent on the concentration and location of defects within the DLG. In particular, only a moderate suppression of electron-hole puddles around the Dirac point induced by the high concentration of remote impurities in the silicon oxide substrate could be achieved. A stronger effect is found on the elastic relaxation rate due to charged defects resulting in mobility strongly dependent on the electron denisty in the additional layer of DLG. We find that the quantum interference correction to the resistivity of graphene is also strongly affected by screening in DLG. In particular, the dephasing rate is strongly suppressed by the additional screening that supresses the amplitude of electron-electron interaction and reduces the diffusion time that electrons spend in proximity of each other. The latter effect combined with screening of elastic relaxation rates results in a peculiar gate tunable weak-localization magnetoresistance and quantum correction to resistivity. We propose suitable experiments to test our theory and discuss the possible relevance of our results to exisiting data.