We investigate collective spin excitations in graphene with proximity-induced spin-orbit coupling (SOC) of the Rashba and valley-Zeeman types, as it is the case, e.g., for graphene on transition- metal-dichalcogenide substrates. It is shown that, even in the absence of an external magnetic field, such a system supports collective modes, which correspond to coupled oscillations of the uniform and valley-staggered magnetizations. These modes can be detected via both zero-field electron spin resonance (ESR) and zero-field electric-dipole spin resonance (EDSR), with EDSR response coming solely from Rashba SOC. We analyze the effect of electron-electron interaction within the Fermi- liquid kinetic equation and show that the interaction splits both the ESR and EDSR peaks into two. The magnitude of splitting and the relative weights of the resonances can be used to extract the spin-orbit coupling constants and many-body interaction parameters that may not be accessible by other methods.
Proximity effect is a very powerful approach and has been widely applied to induce electron correlations such as: superconductivity, magnetism and spin-orbit effects at the interface of heterostructure quantum materials. However, proximity induced charge density wave (CDW) state has remained elusive. We report the first observation of a novel proximity induced CDW within a graphene layer that is deposited on 1T-TaS2 crystal. By using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy to probe the interface of the graphene/1T-TaS2 heterostructure together with theoretical modeling, we show that the…
Superconducting proximity effects in graphene have received a great deal of attention for over a decade now. This has unveiled a plethora of exotic effects linked to the specificities of graphene's electronic properties. The vast majority of the related studies are based on conventional, low-temperature superconducting metals with isotropic $s$-wave pairing. Here we review recent advances made on the less studied case of unconventional high-temperature superconducting cuprates. These are characterized by an anisotropic $d$-wave pairing, whose interplay with Dirac electrons yields very rich phy…
Proximity-induced fine features and spin-textures of the electronic bands in graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures can be explored from the point of tailoring a twist angle. Here we study spin-orbit coupling and exchange coupling engineering of graphene states in the proximity of 1T-TaS$_2$ not triggering the twist, but a charge density wave in 1T-TaS$_2$-a realistic low-temperature phase. Using density functional theory and effective model we found that the emergence of the charge density wave in 1T-TaS$_2$ significantly enhances Rashba spin-orbit splitting in graphene and tilts the s…
We devise a model to explain why twisted bi-layer graphene (TBLG) exhibits insulating behavior when $ν=2,3$ charges occupy a unit moiré cell, a feature attributed to Mottness, but not for $ν=1$, clearly inconsistent with Mott insulation. We compute $r_s=E_U/E_K$, where $E_U$ and $E_K$ are the potential and kinetic energies, respectively, and show that (i) the Mott criterion lies at a density $10^4$ higher than in the experiments and (ii) a transition to a series of Wigner crystalline states exists as a function of $ν$. We find, for $ν=1$, $r_s$ fails to cross the threshold ($r_s = 37$) for the…
In the pursuit of developing routes to enhance magnetic Kitaev interactions in α-RuCl3, as well as probing doping effects, we investigate the electronic properties of α-RuCl3 in proximity to graphene. We study α-RuCl3/graphene heterostructures via ab initio density functional theory calculations, Wannier projection and non-perturbative exact diagonalization methods. We show that α-RuCl3 becomes strained when placed on graphene and charge transfer occurs between the two layers, making α-RuCl3 (graphene) lightly electron-doped (hole-doped). This gives rise to an insulator to metal transition in …
We reveal a proximity effect between a topological band (Chern) insulator described by a Haldane model and spin-polarized Dirac particles of a graphene layer. Coupling weakly the two systems through a tunneling term in the bulk, the topological Chern insulator induces a gap and an opposite Chern number on the Dirac particles at half-filling resulting in a sign flip of the Berry curvature at one Dirac point. We study different aspects of the bulk-edge correspondence and present protocols to observe the evolution of the Berry curvature as well as two counter-propagating (protected) edge modes wi…
Tuning correlated states of twisted mono-bilayer graphene with proximity-induced spin-orbit coupling
Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research（马克斯·普朗克固体研究所）；Technische Universität München（慕尼黑工业大学）；University of Geneva（日内瓦大学）；Leiden University（莱顿大学）；University of Stuttgart（斯图加特大学）
Using a van der Waals vertical heterostructure consisting of monolayer graphene, monolayer hBN and NbSe$_2$, we have performed local characterization of induced correlated states in different configurations. At a temperature of 4.6 K, we have shown that both superconductivity and charge density waves can be induced in graphene from NbSe2 by proximity effects. By applying a vertical magnetic field, we imaged the Abrikosov vortex lattice and extracted the coherence length for the proximitized superconducting graphene. We further show that the induced correlated states can be completely blocked b…
Cold atoms in an optical lattice with brick-wall geometry have been used to mimic graphene, a two-dimensional material with characteristic Dirac excitations. Here we propose to bring such artificial graphene into the proximity of a second atomic layer with a square lattice geometry. For non-interacting fermions, we find that such bilayer system undergoes a phase transition from a graphene-like semi-metal phase, characterized by a band structure with Dirac points, to a gapped band insulator phase. In the presence of attractive interactions between fermions with pseudospin-1/2 degree of freedom,…
Proximity of two different materials leads to an intricate coupling of quasiparticles so that an unprecedented electronic state is often realized at the interface. Here, we demonstrate a resonance-type many-body ground state in graphene, a non-magnetic two-dimensional Dirac semimetal, when grown on SmB6, a Kondo insulator, via thermal decomposition of fullerene molecules. This ground state is typically observed in three-dimensional magnetic materials with correlated electrons. Above the characteristic Kondo temperature of the substrate, the electron band structure of pristine graphene remains …
We theoretically study scattering process and superconducting triplet correlations in a graphene junction comprised of ferromagnet-RSO-superconductor in which RSO stands for a region with Rashba spin orbit interaction. Our results reveal spin-polarized subgap transport through the system due to an anomalous equal-spin Andreev reflection in addition to conventional back scatterings. We calculate equal- and opposite-spin pair correlations near the F-RSO interface and demonstrate direct link of the anomalous Andreev reflection and equal-spin pairings arised due to the proximity effect in the pres…
We consider twisted bilayer graphene on a transition metal dichalcogenide substrate, where proximity-induced spin-orbit coupling significantly alters the eight flat bands which occur near the magic angle. The resulting band structure features a pair of extremely flat bands across most of the mini-Brillouin zone. Further details depend sensitively on the symmetries of the heterostructure; we find semiconducting band structures when all two-fold rotations around in-plane axis are broken, and semi-metallic band structures otherwise. We calculate the Chern numbers of the different isolated bands, …
Graphene band renormalization at the proximity of the van Hove singularity (VHS) has been investigated by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) on the Li-doped quasi-freestanding graphene on the cobalt (0001) surface. The absence of graphene band hybridization with the substrate, the doping contribution well represented by a rigid energy shift and the excellent electron-electron interaction screening ensured by the metallic substrate offer a privileged point of view for such investigation. A clear ARPES signal is detected along the M point of the graphene Brillouin zone, giving ris…
