A team of researchers led by Moore Foundation Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) Investigator Dimitri Basov, of University of California, San Diego, has discovered a new type of collective electronic behavior in a system based on graphene—an atom-thin sheet of carbon atoms.
The study, Plasmons in graphene moiré superlattices, was recently published in journal Nature Materials. Basov’s team investigated a single layer of graphene placed on top of a crystal of boron nitride. Graphene and boron nitride have similar hexagonal lattices, and interaction of these two lattices produces an emergent periodic hexagonal structure termed moiré superlattice, which has a profound effect on the electronic band structure of graphene. The team used the technique of infrared nano-imaging to explore how the moiré superstructure affects the propagation of surface plasmons, collective excitations of electrons coupled to infrared light. They found evidence for a new type of surface plasmon in this system, a finding that could help accelerate new findings in other moiré-forming superlattices.
Read the study abstract here.
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