Systematic Modulation of Charge and Spin in Graphene Nanoribbons on MgO

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Domínguez-Celorrio, Amelia, Edens, Leonard, Sanz, Sofía, Vilas-Varela, Manuel, Martinez-Castro, Jose, Peña, Diego, Langlais, Véronique, Frederiksen, Thomas, Pascual, José I., Serrate, David
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Domínguez-Celorrio, Amelia
Edens, Leonard
Sanz, Sofía
Vilas-Varela, Manuel
Martinez-Castro, Jose
Peña, Diego
Langlais, Véronique
Frederiksen, Thomas
Pascual, José I.
Serrate, David
author_facet Domínguez-Celorrio, Amelia
Edens, Leonard
Sanz, Sofía
Vilas-Varela, Manuel
Martinez-Castro, Jose
Peña, Diego
Langlais, Véronique
Frederiksen, Thomas
Pascual, José I.
Serrate, David
contents Graphene nanostructures can be engineered with atomic precision to display customized electronic states with application in spintronics or quantum technologies. In order to take advantage of their full potential, their charge and spin state must be precisely controlled. Graphene systems exchange charge to reach thermodynamic equilibrium with their environment, requiring external gating potentials to tune their ground state. Alternative strategies like intrinsic doping or substrate modifications provided small variations of their equilibrium charge and poor control over their spin. Here, we show systematic manipulation of the electron occupation in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) laying on MgO layers grown on Ag(001). Owing to the extraordinary decoupling properties of MgO, and the electropositive character of the substrate, GNRs are found to host an integer number of electron charges that depend on their length and shape. This results in the alternation between a non-magnetic closed-shell state and an open-shell paramagnetic system for even and odd electron occupations respectively. For the odd case, we found the spectral fingerprint of a narrow Coulomb correlation gap, which is the smoking gun of its spin 1/2 paramagnetic state. Comparisons of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) data with mean-field Hubbard (MFH) simulations confirm the practical discretization of the GNR electronic states and point to charge excess of up to 19 electrons in a single ribbon. We anticipate that GNRs supported by MgO ultra-thin insulating films can open the door to customized devices for quantum sensing and quantum processing applications..
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_03927
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Systematic Modulation of Charge and Spin in Graphene Nanoribbons on MgO
Domínguez-Celorrio, Amelia
Edens, Leonard
Sanz, Sofía
Vilas-Varela, Manuel
Martinez-Castro, Jose
Peña, Diego
Langlais, Véronique
Frederiksen, Thomas
Pascual, José I.
Serrate, David
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Quantum Physics
Graphene nanostructures can be engineered with atomic precision to display customized electronic states with application in spintronics or quantum technologies. In order to take advantage of their full potential, their charge and spin state must be precisely controlled. Graphene systems exchange charge to reach thermodynamic equilibrium with their environment, requiring external gating potentials to tune their ground state. Alternative strategies like intrinsic doping or substrate modifications provided small variations of their equilibrium charge and poor control over their spin. Here, we show systematic manipulation of the electron occupation in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) laying on MgO layers grown on Ag(001). Owing to the extraordinary decoupling properties of MgO, and the electropositive character of the substrate, GNRs are found to host an integer number of electron charges that depend on their length and shape. This results in the alternation between a non-magnetic closed-shell state and an open-shell paramagnetic system for even and odd electron occupations respectively. For the odd case, we found the spectral fingerprint of a narrow Coulomb correlation gap, which is the smoking gun of its spin 1/2 paramagnetic state. Comparisons of scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) data with mean-field Hubbard (MFH) simulations confirm the practical discretization of the GNR electronic states and point to charge excess of up to 19 electrons in a single ribbon. We anticipate that GNRs supported by MgO ultra-thin insulating films can open the door to customized devices for quantum sensing and quantum processing applications..
title Systematic Modulation of Charge and Spin in Graphene Nanoribbons on MgO
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.03927