arXiv subjects

Jia-Cai Nie

Publications and source records attributed to Jia-Cai Nie.

32 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Hierarchy of Graphene Wrinkles Induced by Thermal Strain Engineering

Graphene is only one atom thick and becomes the ultimate thin film to explore membrane physics and mechanics. Here we study hierarchy of graphene wrinkles induced by thermal strain engineering and demonstrate that the wrinkling hierarchy can be accounted for by the wrinklon theory. We derive an equation λ = (ky)0.5 explaining evolution of wrinkling wavelength λ with the distance to the edge y observed in our experiment by considering both bending energy and stretching energy of the graphene flakes. The prefactor k in the equation is determined to be about 55 nm, which is independent of the size of the graphene flakes. Our experimental result indicates that the classical membrane behavior of graphene persists down to about 100 nm of the wrinkling wavelength.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Electronic Structures of Graphene Layers on Metal Foil: Effect of Point Defects

Here we report a facile method to generate a high density of point defects in graphene on metal foil and show how the point defects affect the electronic structures of graphene layers. Our scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements, complemented by first principle calculations, reveal that the point defects result in both the intervalley and intravalley scattering of graphene. The Fermi velocity is reduced in the vicinity area of the defect due to the enhanced scattering. Additionally, our analysis further points out that periodic point defects can tailor the electronic properties of graphene by introducing a significant bandgap, which opens an avenue towards all-graphene electronics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Strain Induced One-Dimensional Landau-Level Quantization in Corrugated Graphene

Theoretical research has predicted that ripples of graphene generates effective gauge field on its low energy electronic structure and could lead to zero-energy flat bands, which are the analog of Landau levels in real magnetic fields. Here we demonstrate, using a combination of scanning tunneling microscopy and tight-binding approximation, that the zero-energy Landau levels with vanishing Fermi velocities will form when the effective pseudomagnetic flux per ripple is larger than the flux quantum. Our analysis indicates that the effective gauge field of the ripples results in zero-energy flat bands in one direction but not in another. The Fermi velocities in the perpendicular direction of the ripples are not renormalized at all. The condition to generate the ripples is also discussed according to classical thin-film elasticity theory.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Strain-induced Evolution of Electronic Band Structures in a Twisted Graphene Bilayer

Here we study the evolution of local electronic properties of a twisted graphene bilayer induced by a strain and a high curvature. The strain and curvature strongly affect the local band structures of the twisted graphene bilayer; the energy difference of the two low-energy van Hove singularities decreases with increasing the lattice deformations and the states condensed into well-defined pseudo-Landau levels, which mimic the quantization of massive Dirac fermions in a magnetic field of about 100 T, along a graphene wrinkle. The joint effect of strain and out-of-plane distortion in the graphene wrinkle also results in a valley polarization with a significant gap, i.e., the eight-fold degenerate Landau level at the charge neutrality point is splitted into two four-fold degenerate quartets polarized on each layer. These results suggest that strained graphene bilayer could be an ideal platform to realize the high-temperature zero-field quantum valley Hall effect.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Evidence for Superlattice Dirac Points and Space-dependent Fermi Velocity in Corrugated Graphene Monolayer

Recent studies show that periodic potentials can generate superlattice Dirac points at energies in graphene (is the Fermi velocity of graphene and G is the reciprocal superlattice vector). Here, we perform scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy studies of a corrugated graphene monolayer on Rh foil. We show that the quasi-periodic ripples of nanometer wavelength in the corrugated graphene give rise to weak one-dimensional (1D) electronic potentials and thereby lead to the emergence of the superlattice Dirac points. The position of the superlattice Dirac point is space-dependent and shows a wide distribution of values. We demonstrated that the space-dependent superlattice Dirac points is closely related to the space-dependent Fermi velocity, which may arise from the effect of the local strain and the strong electron-electron interaction in the corrugated graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Angle Dependent Van Hove Singularities in Slightly Twisted Graphene Bilayer

Recent studies show that two low-energy Van Hove singularities (VHSs) seen as two pronounced peaks in the density of states (DOS) could be induced in twisted graphene bilayer. Here, we report angle dependent VHSs of slightly twisted graphene bilayer studied by scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. We show that energy difference of the two VHSs follows \DeltaEvhs ~ \hbarνF\DeltaK between 1.0^{\circ} and 3.0^{\circ} (here νF ~ 1.1\times106 m/s is the Fermi velocity of monolayer graphene, \DeltaK = 2Ksin(θ/2) is the shift between the corresponding Dirac points of the twisted graphene bilayer). This result indicates that the rotation angle between graphene sheets not results in significant reduction of the Fermi velocity, which quite differs from that predicted by band structure calculations. However, around a twisted angle θ~ 1.3^{\circ}, the observed \DeltaEvhs ~ 0.11 eV is much less than the expected value \hbarνF\DeltaK ~ 0.28 eV at 1.3^{\circ}. The origin of the reduction of \DeltaEvhs at 1.3^{\circ} is discussed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Controlling the Interlayer Coupling of Twisted Bilayer Graphene

The interlayer coupling of twisted bilayer graphene could markedly affect its electronic band structure. A current challenge required to overcome in experiment is how to precisely control the coupling and therefore tune the electronic properties of the bilayer graphene. Here, we describe a facile method to modulate the local interlayer coupling by adsorption of single molecule magnets onto the twisted bilayer graphene and report the characterization of its electronic band structure using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. The low-energy Van Hove singularities (VHSs) and superlattice Dirac cones, induced by the interlayer coupling and graphene-on-graphene moiré respectively, are observed in the tunneling spectra. Our experiment demonstrates that the energy difference of the two VHSs, which reflects the magnitude of interlayer coupling, can be tuned by the local coverage density of adsorption.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Flat Bands near Fermi Level of Topological Line Defects on Graphite

Flat bands play an important role in the study of strongly correlated phenomena, such as ferromagnetism, superconductivity, and fractional quantum Hall effect. Here we report direct experimental evidence for the presence of flat bands, close to the Fermi level, in one-dimensional topological defects on graphite seen as a pronounced peak in the tunnelling density of states. Our ab initio calculations indicate that the flat bands with vanishing Fermi velocity originate from sp2 dangling bonds (with antibonding nature) of undercoordinated carbon atoms at the edges of the defects. We further demonstrate that the presence of flat bands could be a universal behavior of 1D defects of graphene/graphite with undercoordinated carbon atoms at the edges of the defects.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Single-layer behavior and slow carrier density dynamic of twisted graphene bilayer

We report scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) of twisted graphene bilayer on SiC substrate. For twist angle ~ 4.5o the Dirac point ED is located about 0.40 eV below the Fermi level EF due to the electron doping at the graphene/SiC interface. We observed an unexpected result that the local Dirac point around a nanoscaled defect shifts towards the Fermi energy during the STS measurements (with a time scale about 100 seconds). This behavior was attributed to the decoupling between the twisted graphene and the substrate during the measurements, which lowers the carrier density of graphene simultaneously.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Enhanced Intervalley Scattering of Twisted Bilayer Graphene by Periodic AB Stacked Atoms

The electronic properties of twisted bilayer graphene on SiC substrate were studied via combination of transport measurements and scanning tunneling microscopy. We report the observation of enhanced intervalley scattering from one Dirac cone to the other, which contributes to weak localization, of the twisted bilayer graphene by increasing the interlayer coupling strength. Our experiment and analysis demonstrate that the enhanced intervalley scattering is closely related to the periodic AB stacked atoms (the A atom of layer 1 and the B atom of layer 2 that have the same horizontal positions) that break the sublattice degeneracy of graphene locally. We further show that these periodic AB stacked atoms affect intervalley but not intravalley scattering. The result reported here provides an effective way to atomically manipulate the intervalley scattering of graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Experimental realization of single electron tunneling diode based on vertical graphene two-barrier junction

Usually, graphene is used in its horizontal directions to design novel concept devices. Here, we report a single electron tunneling diode based on quantum tunneling through a vertical graphene two-barrier junction. The junction is formed by positioning a scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) tip above a graphene nanoribbon that was deposited on a graphite surface. Because of the asymmetry of the two-barrier junction, the electrons can unidirectional transfer from the tip to the graphene nanoribbon but not from the graphene to the tip. This result opens intriguing opportunities for designing new type of graphene transistors in its vertical direction.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Magnetic Core-Shell Structure and Proximity Effect in 7 nm Single-Crystal Co3O4 Nanowires

We present a study of magnetic properties of single-crystal Co3O4 nanowires with diameter about 7 nm. The nanowires expose (111) planes composed of plenty of Co3+ cations and exhibit two Néel temperatures at 56 K (TN of wire cores) and 73 K (TN of wire shells), which are far above TN = 40 K of bulk Co3O4. This novel bahavior is attributed to symmetry breaking of surface Co3+ cations and magnetic proximity effect. The nanowire shells show macroscopic residual magnetic moments. Cooling in a magnetic field, a fraction of the residual moments are tightly pinned to the antiferromagnetic lattice, which results in an obvious horizontal and vertical shift of hysteresis loop. Our experiment demonstrates that the exchange bias field HE and the pinned magnetic moments Mpin follow a simple expression HE = aMpin with a a constant.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Observation of Landau level-like quantizations at 77 K along a strained-induced graphene ridge

Recent studies show that the electronic structures of graphene can be modified by strain and it was predicted that strain in graphene can induce peaks in the local density of states (LDOS) mimicking Landau levels (LLs) generated in the presence of a large magnetic field. Here we report scanning tunnelling spectroscopy (STS) observation of nine strain-induced peaks in LDOS at 77 K along a graphene ridge created when the graphene layer was cleaved from a sample of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG). The energies of these peaks follow the progression of LLs of massless 'Dirac fermions' (DFs) in a magnetic field of 230 T. The results presented here suggest a possible route to realize zero-field quantum Hall-like effects at 77 K.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Effect of Exchange-type Zero-bias Anomaly on Single Electron Tunnelling of Au Nanoparticles

Using cryogenic scanning tunnelling microscopy and scanning tunnelling spectroscopy we measured single electron tunnelling of isolated Au nanoparticles with 1.4 nm in radius. We observe that a gap ΔV ~ 2e/C (C is the capacitance of the Au particle) around zero bias in the tunnelling conductance spectrum, followed by a series of discrete single electron tunnelling peaks with voltage widths of EC ~ e/C at both negative and positive bias. Experimental data are well explained by taking into account the effect of exchange interaction of electrons on the single electron tunnelling of Au nanoparticles. A tunnelling peak near zero-bias was suppressed by the exchange-type zero-bias anomaly, which results in the gap ΔV ~ 2EC.

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