GRAPHENE

the first 2D crystal lattice

 dimensionality of carbon

diamond, graphite

GRAPHENE
realized in 2004
(Novoselov, Science 306, 2004)

carbon nanotubes

fullerenes, buckyballs
 what‘s so special about graphene?

crystal honeycomb symmetry

with two sublattices A and B

- two atoms per unit cell

- two conical points per Brillouin zone
- band crossing at K and K‘
-linear low-energy dispersion

E = hvFk
fermi velocity vF = 106 m-1s-1
 relativistic, massless Dirac fermions

• linear dispersion at the Dirac-point effective mass m* = 0

• description rather with Dirac instead of Schrödinger equation:

• this is a spinor wavefunction in QED

• where the pseudospin σ indicates the sublattices A and B
• the projection of the pseudospin on the k-direction gives rise to a new
internal degree of freedom:
chirality

many features of graphene are understood as

conservation of chirality and pseudospin σ

 charge transport in graphene
resistance

graphene on Si/SiO2 substrate

etched into a Hall-bar structure

conductance

universal quantum
conductance minimum?
 half-integer QHE

graphene:
half-integer QHE Landau levels in the
density of states
no plateau at zero
energy

bilayer graphene:
integer QHE
but
N=0 plateau missing!
 Klein paradox

tunneling of relativistic particels through potential barriers

with T =1

-barrier repulsive for electrons

-but attractive for positrons ‚magic angles´ for single and
bilayer graphene

therefore electrostatic definition of devices

with metal gates is not possible!
 mechanical cleavage

peeling off layers of graphite with a sticky tape

transfer onto substrate

optical microscope image of

resulting flakes
 further steps

- localisation of appropriate flakes with

optical microscope

- contacting with metal electrodes by e-beam

lithographie

- writing an etch-mask with e-beam

lithographie

- reactive ion etching with Ar/O2 plasma

- wire-bonding to contact pins

and testing the device

- further etching, if necessary to narrow the

graphene structures
 submicron device

conductance measurements of a
250 nm graphene quantum dot @ T = 4K;
typical V-shape with fluctuations

inset:
- CB oscillations in the low-conductance
region
- Coulomb diamonds Ec = 3 meV

periodic CB resonances
of the same dot
@ T= 0.3K

∆Vg= 16 meV
 intermediate quantum dot

• CB peaks and Coulomb diamonds

of a 40 nm graphene dot @ T = 4K;

• irregular spacing and height

• excited states are hardly visible at

Vb=10 meV δE = 10meV

∆E = Ec +δE

large ∆Vg variation indicates the

confinement energy beeing larger
than Ec
due to δE = α/D
for massless quasiparticels
α =0.2-1.5 eV nm
 chaotic Dirac billiards

peak spacing histograms for different D:

• random position for D < 100 nm

• Dirac fermions confined to a ideal disk

Poisson distribution of ∆E

• observed: Gaussian unitary ensemble

quantum chaos in Dirac billiards

at relatively large diameters

δE ~ 1/D2
 quantum confinement dot

• D < 30 nm

• quantum confinement
dominating

• levelspacing up to 50 meV

• excited states visible due to

extremely narrow constrictions
defining the quantum dots
 room temperature graphene FET

transistor action of ~ 1nm constriction device at room temperature

level spacing: ~ 0.5 eV

 quantum point contacts

• large gaps for narrow constrictions

• mesoscopic fluctuations in conductance

• QPC transparencies limit the CB region

of the quantum dots
 CONCLUSION

• graphene is a great material

• there‘s a lot of work to be done

Thank You!