Showing papers by "Andre K. Geim published in 2023"

Unexpected catalytic activity of nanorippled graphene

Abstract: Significance Graphene, an isolated atomic plane of graphite, is generally expected to inherit most of graphite’s properties. These expectations are reported to be wrong as far as chemical activity of the two materials is concerned. Indeed, graphite is one of the most inert materials known in nature. In contrast, graphene is shown here to dissociate molecular hydrogen as strongly as the best catalysts known for this reaction. This is attributed to the fact that graphene monolayers are not flat (as within graphite) but unavoidably have nanoscale ripples that serve as active sites for hydrogen splitting. The results have implications for all two-dimensional (2D) materials that being inherently nonflat may exhibit chemical and catalytic properties very different from their bulk counterparts.

Giant magnetoresistance of Dirac plasma in high-mobility graphene

Abstract: Abstract The most recognizable feature of graphene’s electronic spectrum is its Dirac point, around which interesting phenomena tend to cluster. At low temperatures, the intrinsic behaviour in this regime is often obscured by charge inhomogeneity 1,2 but thermal excitations can overcome the disorder at elevated temperatures and create an electron–hole plasma of Dirac fermions. The Dirac plasma has been found to exhibit unusual properties, including quantum-critical scattering 3–5 and hydrodynamic flow 6–8 . However, little is known about the plasma’s behaviour in magnetic fields. Here we report magnetotransport in this quantum-critical regime. In low fields, the plasma exhibits giant parabolic magnetoresistivity reaching more than 100 per cent in a magnetic field of 0.1 tesla at room temperature. This is orders-of-magnitude higher than magnetoresistivity found in any other system at such temperatures. We show that this behaviour is unique to monolayer graphene, being underpinned by its massless spectrum and ultrahigh mobility, despite frequent (Planckian limit) scattering 3–5,9–14 . With the onset of Landau quantization in a magnetic field of a few tesla, where the electron–hole plasma resides entirely on the zeroth Landau level, giant linear magnetoresistivity emerges. It is nearly independent of temperature and can be suppressed by proximity screening 15 , indicating a many-body origin. Clear parallels with magnetotransport in strange metals 12–14 and so-called quantum linear magnetoresistance predicted for Weyl metals 16 offer an interesting opportunity to further explore relevant physics using this well defined quantum-critical two-dimensional system.

A magnetically-induced Coulomb gap in graphene due to electron-electron interactions

Abstract: Insights into the fundamental properties of graphene's Dirac-Weyl fermions have emerged from studies of electron tunnelling transistors in which an atomically thin layer of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is sandwiched between two layers of high purity graphene. Here, we show that when a single defect is present within the hBN tunnel barrier, it can inject electrons into the graphene layers and its sharply defined energy level acts as a high resolution spectroscopic probe of electron-electron interactions in graphene. We report a magnetic field dependent suppression of the tunnel current flowing through a single defect below temperatures of $\sim$ 2 K. This is attributed to the formation of a magnetically-induced Coulomb gap in the spectral density of electrons tunnelling into graphene due to electron-electron interactions.

Proton transport through nanoscale corrugations in two-dimensional crystals

Abstract: Defect-free graphene is impermeable to all atoms and ions at ambient conditions. Experiments that can resolve gas flows of a few atoms per hour through micrometre-sized membranes found that monocrystalline graphene is completely impermeable to helium, the smallest of atoms. Such membranes were also shown to be impermeable to all ions, including the smallest one, lithium. On the other hand, graphene was reported to be highly permeable to protons, nuclei of hydrogen atoms. There is no consensus, however, either on the mechanism behind the unexpectedly high proton permeability or even on whether it requires defects in graphene's crystal lattice. Here using high resolution scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM), we show that, although proton permeation through mechanically-exfoliated monolayers of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride cannot be attributed to any structural defects, nanoscale non-flatness of 2D membranes greatly facilitates proton transport. The spatial distribution of proton currents visualized by SECCM reveals marked inhomogeneities that are strongly correlated with nanoscale wrinkles and other features where strain is accumulated. Our results highlight nanoscale morphology as an important parameter enabling proton transport through 2D crystals, mostly considered and modelled as flat, and suggest that strain and curvature can be used as additional degrees of freedom to control the proton permeability of 2D materials.

Kagom\'e quantum oscillations in graphene superlattices

Abstract: Periodic systems feature the Hofstadter butterfly spectrum produced by Brown--Zak minibands of electrons formed when magnetic field flux through the lattice unit cell is commensurate with flux quantum and manifested by magneto-transport oscillations. Quantum oscillations, such as Shubnikov -- de Haas effect and Aharonov--Bohm effect, are also characteristic for electronic systems with closed orbits in real space and reciprocal space. Here we show the intricate relation between these two phenomena by tracing quantum magneto-oscillations to Lifshitz transitions in graphene superlattices, where they persist even at relatively low fields and very much above liquid-helium temperatures. The oscillations originate from Aharonov--Bohm interference on cyclotron trajectories that form a kagom\'e-shaped network characteristic for Lifshitz transitions. In contrast to Shubnikov - de Haas oscillations, the kagom\'e oscillations are robust against thermal smearing and they can be detected even when the Hofstadter butterfly spectrum is undermined by electron's scattering. We expect that kagom\'e quantum oscillations are generic to rotationally-symmetric two-dimensional crystals close to Lifshitz transitions.