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Phase coherence in graphene

University of British Columbia

The phase coherent properties of electrons in low temperature graphene are measured and analyzed. I demonstrate that graphene is able to coherently transport spin-polarized electrons over micrometer distances, and prove that magnetic defects in the graphene sheet are responsible for limiting spin transport over longer distances. It is shown that these magnetic defects are also partly responsible for the high decoherence (phase loss) observed at low temperature, and that another (as yet unknown) non-magnetic mechanism is required to explain the remainder. Similar measurements are used to probe and characterize the size scales of the roughness of the graphene sheet. The effects of an in-plane magnetic field threading through the rough graphene sheet are analogous to the effects of the built-in strain; I argue that the observed large valley-dependent scattering rates are a consequence of this built-in strain. I also describe an original, robust technique for extracting coherence information from conductance fluctuations. The technique is demonstrated in experiments on graphene, used to efficiently detect the presence of magnetic defects. This new approach to studying phase coherence can be easily carried over to other mesoscopic semiconducting systems.

Text

2013-12-12

Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/45614

Physics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ca/