Impurity scattering, Friedel oscillations and RKKY interaction in graphene

Abstract

We investigate Friedel Oscillations (FO) surrounding a point scatterer in graphene. We find that the long-distance decay of FO depends on the symmetry of the scatterer. In particular, the FO of the charge density around a Coulomb impurity show a faster, δρ∼1/ r3, decay than in conventional 2D electron systems. In contrast, the FO of the exchange field which surrounds atomically sharp defects breaking the hexagonal symmetry of the honeycomb lattice decay according to the 1/r2 law. We discuss the consequences of these findings for the temperature dependence of the resistivity of the material and the RKKY interaction between magnetic impurities.