Electric field control of soliton motion and stacking in trilayer graphene
Name
Jarillo_Electric field.pdf
Size
2.66 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5313c85a10afacacbe60ed7f0cdb51ed
Author(s)
Yankowitz, Matthew
Wang, Joel I-Jan
Birdwell, A. Glen
Chen, Yu-An
Watanabe, K.
Taniguchi, T.
Jacquod, Philippe
San-Jose, Pablo
Jarillo-Herrero, Pablo
LeRoy, Brian J.
Date Issued
April 2014
Journal
Nature Materials
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Yankowitz, Matthew, Joel I-Jan Wang, A. Glen Birdwell, Yu-An Chen, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, Philippe Jacquod, Pablo San-Jose, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, and Brian J. LeRoy. “Electric Field Control of Soliton Motion and Stacking in Trilayer Graphene.” Nature Materials (April 28, 2014).
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
The crystal structure of a material plays an important role in determining its electronic properties. Changing from one crystal structure to another involves a phase transition that is usually controlled by a state variable such as temperature or pressure. In the case of trilayer graphene, there are two common stacking configurations (Bernal and rhombohedral) that exhibit very different electronic properties. In graphene flakes with both stacking configurations, the region between them consists of a localized strain soliton where the carbon atoms of one graphene layer shift by the carbon–carbon bond distance. Here we show the ability to move this strain soliton with a perpendicular electric field and hence control the stacking configuration of trilayer graphene with only an external voltage. Moreover, we find that the free-energy difference between the two stacking configurations scales quadratically with electric field, and thus rhombohedral stacking is favoured as the electric field increases. This ability to control the stacking order in graphene opens the way to new devices that combine structural and electrical properties.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3965
