Kandyba Viktor, Yablonskikh Mikhail, Barinov Alexei
Physics Department, University of Trieste, Via Valerio 2, 34127, Trieste, Italy.
Elettra - Sincrotrone Trieste, s.s. 14 - km.163,5 in Area Science Park, Basovizza, 34149, Trieste, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2015 Nov 9;5:16388. doi: 10.1038/srep16388.
Graphene, a layer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb lattice, captures enormous interest as probably the most promising component of future electronics thanks to its mechanical robustness, flexibility, and unique charge carrier quasiparticles propagating like massless high energy Dirac fermions. If several graphene layers form a stack, the interaction between them is, on the one hand, weak, allowing realization of various registries between the layers and, on the other hand, strong enough for a wide range tuning of the electronic properties. Here we grow few layer graphene with various number of layers and twist configurations and address the electronic properties of individual atomic layers in single microscopic domains using angle-resolved photoelectron spectromicroscopy. The dependence of the interlayer coupling on the twist angle is analyzed and, in the domains with tri-layers and more, if different rotations are present, the electrons in weaker coupled adjacent layers are shown to have different properties manifested by coexisting van Hove singularities, moiré superlattices with corresponding superlattice Dirac points, and charge carrier group velocity renormalizations. Moreover, pronounced anisotropy in the charge carrier motion, opening a possibility to transform strongly coupled graphene bilayers into quasi one-dimensional conductors, is observed.
石墨烯是一种呈蜂窝晶格状的碳原子层,因其机械强度高、柔韧性好,且具有独特的电荷载流子准粒子(其传播方式类似于无质量的高能狄拉克费米子),作为未来电子学领域最具潜力的组件之一,备受关注。如果几层石墨烯形成堆叠结构,一方面,它们之间的相互作用较弱,这使得各层之间能够实现多种排列方式;另一方面,这种相互作用又足够强,能够对电子性质进行广泛调节。在此,我们生长了具有不同层数和扭曲构型的少层石墨烯,并使用角分辨光电子能谱显微镜研究单个微观区域中各原子层的电子性质。分析了层间耦合对扭曲角的依赖性,并且在三层及以上的区域中,如果存在不同的旋转方式,结果表明,较弱耦合的相邻层中的电子具有不同的性质,表现为共存的范霍夫奇点、具有相应超晶格狄拉克点的莫尔超晶格以及电荷载流子群速度重整化。此外,还观察到电荷载流子运动中存在明显的各向异性,这为将强耦合石墨烯双层转变为准一维导体提供了可能。