The progress in graphene experiments continues. Unsurprisingly, many people are interested in using graphene, a natural 2d electronic system, to make what some would call quantum dots: localized puddles of electrons separated from "bulk" leads by tunnel barriers. Step one in making graphene quantum dots is to etch graphene into a narrow constriction. You can end up with localized electronic states due to disorder (from the edges and the underlying substrate). This Nano Letter shows examples of this situation. Alternately, you can make structures using gates that can define local regions of p-type (local chemical potential biased into the valence band) and n-type (conduction band) conduction, separated by tunnel junctions formed when p and n regions run into each other. That situation is described here. Neat stuff. I would imagine that low temperature transport measurements through such structures in the presence of applied magnetic fields should be very revealing, given the many predictions about exotic magnetic properties in edge states of graphene ribbons.
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ReplyDeletevery interesting indeed :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for mentioning our work (I'm with the p-n junction team).
Earlier a zurich group, and the Manchester group also have a series of nice measurements with etched structures in graphene.