The recent discovery of methods to isolate graphene 1-3 , a one-atom-thick layer of crystalline carbon, has raised the possibility of a new class of nano-electronics devices based on the extraordinary electrical transport and unusual physical properties 4,5 of this material. However, the experimental realization of devices displaying these properties was, until now, hampered by the influence of the ambient environment, primarily the substrate. Here we report on the fabrication of Suspended Graphene (SG) devices and on studies of their electrical transport properties. In these devices, environmental disturbances were minimized allowing unprecedented access to the intrinsic properties of graphene close to the Dirac Point (DP) where the energy dispersion of the carriers and their density-of-states vanish linearly giving rise to a range of exotic physical properties. We show that charge inhomogeneity is reduced by almost one order of magnitude compared to that in Non-Suspended Graphene (NSG) devices. Moreover, near the DP, the mobility exceeds 100,000 cm 2 /Vs, approaching theoretical predictions for evanescent transport in the ballistic model. The low energy excitation spectrum of graphene mimics relativistic particles -massless Dirac fermions (DF) -with an electron-hole symmetric conical energy dispersion and .vanishing density of states at the DP. Such unusual spectrum is expected to produce 1 novel electronic properties such as negative index of refraction 6 , specular Andreev reflections at graphene-superconductor junctions 7,8 , evanescent transport 9 , anomalous phonon softening 10 , etc. A basic assumption behind these intriguing predictions is that the graphene layer is minimally affected by interactions with the environment. However in reality the environment 11,12 and in particular the substrate 13 , can be quite invasive for such ultra-thin films. For example, the carrier mobility in graphene deposited on a substrate such as Si/SiO 2 deteriorates due to trapped charges in the oxide or to contaminants that get trapped at the graphene-substrate interface during fabrication. The substrate-induced charge inhomogeneity is particularly deleterious near the DP where screening is weak, 14,15 leading to reduced carrier mobility there. In addition, the atomic roughness of the substrate introduces short range scattering centers and may contribute to quench-condensation of ripples within the graphene layer 16 .In order to eliminate substrate induced perturbations, graphene films were suspended from Au/Ti contacts to bridge over a trench in a SiO 2 substrate. In contrast to prior realizations of suspended graphene 17,18 which did not provide electrical contacts for transport measurements, the SG devices described here incorporate multiple electrodes that allow 4-lead transport measurements. The SG devices employed here were fabricated from conventional NSG devices using wet chemical etching (see supporting online material). In a typical SG device, shown in Figure 1b, the graphene layer is suspended from the voltage l...
Electronic instabilities at the crossing of the Fermi energy with a Van Hove singularity in the density of states often lead to new phases of matter such as superconductivity, magnetism or density waves. However, in most materials this condition is difficult to control. In the case of single-layer graphene, the singularity is too far from the Fermi energy and hence difficult to reach with standard doping and gating techniques. Here we report the observation of low-energy Van Hove singularities in twisted graphene layers seen as two pronounced peaks in the density of states measured by scanning tunneling spectroscopy. We demonstrate that a rotation between stacked graphene layers can generate Van Hove singularities, which can be brought arbitrarily close to the Fermi energy by varying the angle of rotation. This opens intriguing prospects for Van Hove singularity engineering of electronic phases.Comment: 21 pages 5 figure
In graphene, which is an atomic layer of crystalline carbon, two of the distinguishing properties of the material are the charge carriers' two-dimensional and relativistic character. The first experimental evidence of the two-dimensional nature of graphene came from the observation of a sequence of plateaus in measurements of its transport properties in the presence of an applied magnetic field. These are signatures of the so-called integer quantum Hall effect. However, as a consequence of the relativistic character of the charge carriers, the integer quantum Hall effect observed in graphene is qualitatively different from its semiconductor analogue. As a third distinguishing feature of graphene, it has been conjectured that interactions and correlations should be important in this material, but surprisingly, evidence of collective behaviour in graphene is lacking. In particular, the quintessential collective quantum behaviour in two dimensions, the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), has so far resisted observation in graphene despite intense efforts and theoretical predictions of its existence. Here we report the observation of the FQHE in graphene. Our observations are made possible by using suspended graphene devices probed by two-terminal charge transport measurements. This allows us to isolate the sample from substrate-induced perturbations that usually obscure the effects of interactions in this system and to avoid effects of finite geometry. At low carrier density, we find a field-induced transition to an insulator that competes with the FQHE, allowing its observation only in the highest quality samples. We believe that these results will open the door to the physics of FQHE and other collective behaviour in graphene.
We report high magnetic field scanning tunneling microscopy and Landau level spectroscopy of twisted graphene layers grown by chemical vapor deposition. For twist angles exceeding ~3° the low energy carriers exhibit Landau level spectra characteristic of massless Dirac fermions. Above 20° the layers effectively decouple and the electronic properties are indistinguishable from those in single-layer graphene, while for smaller angles we observe a slowdown of the carrier velocity which is strongly angle dependent. At the smallest angles the spectra are dominated by twist-induced van Hove singularities and the Dirac fermions eventually become localized. An unexpected electron-hole asymmetry is observed which is substantially larger than the asymmetry in either single or untwisted bilayer graphene.
The discovery of correlated electronic phases, including Mott-like insulators and superconductivity, in twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG) near the magic angle 1-4 , and the intriguing similarity of their phenomenology to that of the high-temperature superconductors, has spurred a surge of research to uncover the underlying physical mechanism 5-9 . Local spectroscopy, which is capable of accessing the symmetry and spatial distribution of the spectral function, can provide essential clues towards unraveling this puzzle. Here we use scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) in magic angle TBLG to visualize the local density of states (DOS) and charge distribution. Doping the sample to partially fill the flat band, where low temperature transport measurements revealed the emergence of correlated electronic phases, we find a pseudogap phase accompanied by a global stripe charge-order whose similarity to high-temperature superconductors 10-16 provides new evidence of a deeper link underlying the phenomenology of these systems.
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