2017/03/09 by Zu-Quan Zhang, Shuai Li, Jing-Tao Lü +2 · 4 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research #Electric field #Graphene #Graphene research and applications #Impurity #Local density of states #Magnetic field #Magnetic impurity #Magnetic moment #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.96.075410
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 96(7) (American Physical Society) · 11 pages, 9 figures
arxiv created 2017/03/09 · openalex publication_date 2017/08/08 · arxiv updated 2017/08/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recently, the existence of local magnetic moment in a hydrogen adatom on graphene was confirmed experimentally [Gonz'alez-Herrero et al., Science 352, 437 (2016)]. Inspired by this breakthrough, we theoretically investigate the top-site adatom on trilayer graphene (TLG) by solving the Anderson impurity model via self-consistent mean field method. The influence of the stacking order, the adsorption site, and external electric field are carefully considered. We find that, due to its unique electronic structure, the situation of TLG is drastically different from that of the monolayer graphene. First, the adatom on rhombohedral stacked TLG (r-TLG) can have a Fano-shaped impurity spectral density, instead of the normal Lorentzian-like one, when the impurity level is around the Fermi level. Second, the impurity level of the adatom on r-TLG can be tuned into an in-gap state by an external electric field, which strongly depends on the direction of the applied electric field and can significantly affect the local magnetic moment formation. Finally, we systematically calculate the impurity magnetic phase diagrams, considering various stacking orders, adsorption sites, doping, and electric field. We show that, because of the in-gap state, the impurity magnetic phase of r-TLG will obviously depend on the direction of the applied electric field as well. All our theoretical results can be readily tested in experiment, and may give a comprehensive understanding about the local magnetic moment of an adatom on TLG.