arXiv subjects

Rafael Roldán

Publications and source records attributed to Rafael Roldán.

27 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Local strain engineering in atomically thin MoS2

Tuning the electronic properties of a material by subjecting it to strain constitutes an important strategy to enhance the performance of semiconducting electronic devices. Using local strain, confinement potentials for excitons can be engineered, with exciting possibilities for trapping excitons for quantum optics and for efficient collection of solar energy. Two-dimensional materials are able to withstand large strains before rupture, offering a unique opportunity to introduce large local strains. Here, we study atomically thin MoS2 layers with large local strains of up to 2.5% induced by controlled delamination from a substrate. Using simultaneous scanning Raman and photoluminescence imaging, we spatially resolve a direct bandgap reduction of up to 90 meV induced by local strain. We observe a funnel effect in which excitons drift hundreds of nanometers to lower bandgap regions before recombining, demonstrating exciton confinement by local strain. The observations are supported by an atomistic tight-binding model developed to predict the effect of inhomogeneous strain on the local electronic states in MoS2. The possibility of generating large strain-induced variations in exciton trapping potentials opens the door for a variety of applications in atomically thin materials including photovoltaics, quantum optics and two-dimensional optoelectronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Screening and Collective Modes in Disordered Graphene Antidot Lattices

The excitation spectrum and the collective modes of graphene antidot lattices (GALs) are studied in the context of a $π$-band tight-binding model. The dynamical polarizability and dielectric function are calculated within the random phase approximation. The effect of different kinds of disorder, such as geometric and chemical disorder, are included in our calculations. We highlight the main differences of GALs with respect to single-layer graphene (SLG). Our results show that, in addition to the well-understood bulk plasmon in doped samples, inter-band plasmons appear in GALs. We further show that the static screening properties of undoped and doped GALs are quantitatively different from SLG.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Electronic Properties of Disordered Graphene Antidot Lattices

Regular nanoscale perforations in graphene (graphene antidot lattices, GAL) are known to lead to a gap in the energy spectrum, thereby paving a possible way towards many applications. This theoretical prediction relies on a perfect placement of identical perforations, a situation not likely to occur in the laboratory. Here, we present a systematic study of the effects of disorder in GALs. We consider both geometric and chemical disorder, and evaluate the density-of-states as well as the optical conductivity of disordered GALs. The theoretical method is based on an efficient algorithm for solving the time-dependent Schr{ö}dinger equation in a tight-binding representation of the graphene sheet [S. Yuan et al., Phys. Rev. B 82, 115448 (2010)], which allows us to consider GALs consisting of 6400 $\times$ 6400 carbon atoms. The central conclusion for all kinds of disorder is that the gaps found for pristine GALs do survive at a considerable amount of disorder, but disappear for very strong disorder. Geometric disorder is more detrimental to gap formation than chemical disorder. The optical conductivity shows a low-energy tail below the pristine GAL band gap due to disorder-introduced transitions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Electric field screening in atomically thin layers of MoS2: the role of interlayer coupling

The aim of this work is to study the electrostatic screening by single and few-layer MoS2 sheets by means of electrostatic force microscopy in combination with a non-linear Thomas-Fermi Theory to interpret the experimental results. We find that a continuum model of decoupled layers, which satisfactorily reproduces the electrostatic screening for graphene and graphite, cannot account for the experimental observations. A three-dimensional model with an interlayer hopping parameter can on the other hand successfully account for the observed electric field screening by MoS2 nanolayers, pointing out the important role of the interlayer coupling in the screening of MoS2.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Polarization of graphene in a strong magnetic field beyond the Dirac cone approximation

In this paper we study the excitation spectrum of graphene in a strong magnetic field, beyond the Dirac cone approximation. The dynamical polarizability is obtained using a full $π$-band tight-binding model where the effect of the magnetic field is accounted for by means of the Peierls substitution. The effect of electron-electron interaction is considered within the random phase approximation, from which we obtain the dressed polarization function and the dielectric function. The range of validity of the Landau level quantization within the continuum approximation is studied, as well as the non-trivial quantization of the spectrum around the Van Hove singularity. We further discuss the effect of disorder, which leads to a smearing of the absorption peaks, and temperature, which activates additional inter-Landau level transitions induced by the Fermi distribution function.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Optical conductivity of disordered graphene beyond the Dirac cone approximation

In this paper we systemically study the optical conductivity and density of states of disorded graphene beyond the Dirac cone approximation. The optical conductivity of graphene is computed by using the Kubo formula, within the framework of a full π-band tight-binding model. Different types of non-correlated and correlated disorders are considered, such as random or Gaussian potentials, random or Gaussian nearest-neighbor hopping parameters, randomly distributed vacancies or their clusters, and random adsorbed hydrogen atoms or their clusters. For a large enough concentration of resonant impurities, a new peak in the optical conductivity is found, associated to transitions between the midgap states and the Van Hove singularities of the main π-band. We further discuss the effect of doping on the spectrum, and find that small amounts of resonant impurities are enough to obtain a background contribution to the conductivity in the infra-red part of the spectrum, in agreement with recent experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Excitation spectrum and high energy plasmons in single- and multi-layer graphene

In this paper we study the excitation spectrum of single- and multi-layer graphene beyond the Dirac cone approximation. The dynamical polarizability of graphene is computed using a full $π$-band tight-binding model, considering the possibility of inter-layer hopping in the calculation. The effect of electron-electron interaction is considered within the random phase approximation. We further discuss the effect of disorder in the spectrum, which leads to a smearing of the absorption peaks. Our results show a redshift of the $π$-plasmon dispersion of single-layer graphene with respect to graphite, in agreement with experimental results. The inclusion of inter-layer hopping in the kinetic Hamiltonian of multi-layer graphene is found to be very important to properly capture the low energy region of the excitation spectrum.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Landau Level Spectrum of ABA- and ABC-stacked Trilayer Graphene

We study the Landau level spectrum of ABA- and ABC-stacked trilayer graphene. We derive analytic low energy expressions for the spectrum, the validity of which is confirmed by comparison to a π-band tight-binding calculation of the density of states on the honeycomb lattice. We further study the effect of a perpendicular electric field on the spectrum, where a zero-energy plateau appears for ABC stacking order, due to the opening of a gap at the Dirac point, while the ABA-stacked trilayer graphene remains metallic. We discuss our results in the context of recent electronic transport experiments. Furthermore, we argue that the expressions obtained can be useful in the analysis of future measurements of cyclotron resonance of electrons and holes in trilayer graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Suppression of anharmonicities in crystalline membranes by external strain

In practice, physical membranes are exposed to a certain amount of external strain (tension or compression), due to the environment where they are placed. As a result, the behavior of the phonon modes of the membrane is modified. We show that anharmonic effects in stiff two-dimensional membranes are highly suppressed under the application of tension. For this, we consider the anharmonic coupling between bending and stretching modes in the self-consistent screening approximation (SCSA), and compare the obtained height-height correlation function in the SCSA to the corresponding harmonic propagator. The elasticity theory results are compared to atomistic Monte Carlo simulations for a graphene membrane under tension. We find that, while rather high values of strain are needed to avoid anharmonicity in soft membranes, strain fields less than 1% are enough to suppress all the anharmonic effects in stiff membranes, as graphene.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗