Modulation of Kekulé adatom ordering due to strain in graphene

Abstract

Intervalley scattering of carriers in graphene at `top' adatoms may give rise to a hidden Kekul\'e ordering pattern in the adatom positions. This ordering is the result of a rapid modulation in the electron-mediated interaction between adatoms at the wavevector $K- K'$, which has been shown experimentally and theoretically to dominate their spatial distribution. Here we show that the adatom interaction is extremely sensitive to strain in the supporting graphene, which leads to a characteristic spatial modulation of the Kekul\'e order as a function of adatom distance. Our results suggest that the spatial distributions of adatoms could provide a way to measure the type and magnitude of strain in graphene and the associated pseudogauge field with high accuracy.