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arXiv · 1308.0552

Emergence of photoswitchable states in a graphene-azobenzene-Au platform

Emanuela Margapoti·Philipp Strobel·Mahmoud M Asmar·Max Seifert·Juan Li·Matthias Sachsenhauser·Oezlem Ceylan·Carlos-Andres Palma·Johannes V. Barth·jose garrido·Anna Cattani-Scholz·Sergio E. Ulloa·Jonathan Finley
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Abstract

The perfect transmission of charge carriers through potential barriers in graphene (Klein tunneling) is a direct consequence of the Dirac equation that governs the low-energy carrier dynamics. As a result, localized states do not exist in unpatterned graphene, but quasi-bound states \emph{can} occur for potentials with closed integrable dynamics. Here, we report the observation of resonance states in photo-switchable self-assembled molecular(SAM)-graphene hybrid. Conductive AFM measurements performed at room temperature reveal strong current resonances, the strength of which can be reversibly gated \textit{on-} and \textit{off-} by optically switching the molecular conformation of the mSAM. Comparisons of the voltage separation between current resonances ($\sim 70$--$120$ mV) with solutions of the Dirac equation indicate that the radius of the gating potential is $\sim 7 \pm 2$ nm with a strength $\geq 0.5$ eV. Our results and methods might provide a route toward \emph{optically programmable} carrier dynamics and transport in graphene nano-materials.

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Emanuela Margapoti, Philipp Strobel, Mahmoud M Asmar, Max Seifert, Juan Li, Matthias Sachsenhauser, Oezlem Ceylan, Carlos-Andres Palma, Johannes V. Barth, jose garrido, Anna Cattani-Scholz, Sergio E. Ulloa, Jonathan Finley. 2013-08-02. Emergence of photoswitchable states in a graphene-azobenzene-Au platform. https://doi.org/10.1021/nl503681z

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