Electron-phonon Interaction In Graphene Research Articles

Raman Linewidth Contributions from Four-Phonon and Electron-Phonon Interactions in Graphene.

The Raman peak position and linewidth provide insight into phonon anharmonicity and electron-phonon interactions in materials. For monolayer graphene, prior first-principles calculations have yielded decreasing linewidth with increasing temperature, which is opposite to measurement results. Here, we explicitly consider four-phonon anharmonicity, phonon renormalization, and electron-phonon coupling, and find all to be important to successfully explain both the G peak frequency shift and linewidths in our suspended graphene sample over a wide temperature range. Four-phonon scattering contributes a prominent linewidth that increases with temperature, while temperature dependence from electron-phonon interactions is found to be reversed above a doping threshold (ℏω_{G}/2, with ω_{G} being the frequency of the G phonon).

Lazy electrons in graphene

Within a tight-binding approximation, we numerically determine the time evolution of graphene electronic states in the presence of classically vibrating nuclei. There is no reliance on the Born-Oppenheimer approximation within the p-orbital tight-binding basis, although our approximation is "atomically adiabatic": the basis p-orbitals are taken to follow nuclear positions. Our calculations show that the strict adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer approximation fails badly. We find that a diabatic (lazy electrons responding weakly to nuclear distortions) Born-Oppenheimer model provides a much more accurate picture and suggests a generalized many-body Bloch orbital-nuclear basis set for describing electron-phonon interactions in graphene.

Modelling electron-phonon interactions in graphene with curved space hydrodynamics

We introduce a different perspective describing electron-phonon interactions in graphene based on curved space hydrodynamics. Interactions of phonons with charge carriers increase the electrical resistivity of the material. Our approach captures the lattice vibrations as curvature changes in the space through which electrons move following hydrodynamic equations. In this picture, inertial corrections to the electronic flow arise naturally effectively producing electron-phonon interactions. The strength of the interaction is controlled by a coupling constant, which is temperature independent. We apply this model to graphene and recover satisfactorily the linear scaling law for the resistivity that is expected at high temperatures. Our findings open up a new perspective of treating electron-phonon interactions in graphene, and also in other materials where electrons can be described by the Fermi liquid theory.

Globalk-space analysis of electron-phonon interaction in graphene and application toM-point spectroscopy

Recently, optical probes have become available that can access and observe energy renormalization due to electron-phonon interaction in graphene away from the well-studied Dirac $K$ point. Using an expanded deformation potential approach, we present a theoretical study of the electron-phonon self-energy and scattering matrix elements across the entire Brillouin zone. We elucidate the roles of modulated hopping and conventional deformation potential coupling, parameterized via standard deformation potentials, the in-plane phonon modes, intra- and interband contributions, and umklapp processes. Applying the theory to nonlinear optical transmission spectroscopy in the vicinity of the $M$ point, we find very good agreement with recently published experimental data.

Graphene-plasmon polaritons: From fundamental properties to potential applications

With the unique possibilities for controlling light in nanoscale devices, graphene plasmonics has opened new perspectives to the nanophotonics community with potential applications in metamaterials, modulators, photodetectors, and sensors. This paper briefly reviews the recent exciting progress in graphene plasmonics. We begin with a general description for optical properties of graphene, particularly focusing on the dispersion of graphene-plasmon polaritons. The dispersion relation of graphene-plasmon polaritons of spatially extended graphene is expressed in terms of the local response limit with intraband contribution. With this theoretical foundation of graphene-plasmon polaritons, we then discuss recent exciting progress, paying specific attention to the following topics: excitation of graphene plasmon polaritons, electron-phonon interactions in graphene on polar substrates, and tunable graphene plasmonics with applications in modulators and sensors. Finally, we seek to address some of the apparent challenges and promising perspectives of graphene plasmonics.

Coherent Generation of Photo-Thermo-Acoustic Wave from Graphene Sheets.

Many remarkable properties of graphene are derived from its large energy window for Dirac-like electronic states and have been explored for applications in electronics and photonics. In addition, strong electron-phonon interaction in graphene has led to efficient photo-thermo energy conversions, which has been harnessed for energy applications. By combining the wavelength independent absorption property and the efficient photo-thermo energy conversion, here we report a new type of applications in sound wave generation underlined by a photo-thermo-acoustic energy conversion mechanism. Most significantly, by utilizing ultrafast optical pulses, we demonstrate the ability to control the phase of sound waves generated by the photo-thermal-acoustic process. Our finding paves the way for new types of applications for graphene, such as remote non-contact speakers, optical-switching acoustic devices, etc.

Observation of vacancy-induced suppression of electronic cooling in defected graphene

Previous studies of electron-phonon interaction in impure graphene have found that disorder can give rise to an enhancement of electronic cooling at high temperatures. We investigate the effect of lattice vacancy in both mono- and bilayer graphene and observe an order of magnitude suppression of electronic cooling at low temperatures compared with clean graphene. The dependence of the coupling constant on the phonon temperature implies its link to the dynamics of disorder. Our study highlights the effect of disorder on electron-phonon interaction in graphene. In addition, the suppression of electronic cooling holds great promise for improving the performance of graphene-based bolometer and photodetector devices.

Probing near Dirac point electron-phonon interaction in graphene

Carrier dynamics in graphene films on CaF2 have been measured in the mid infrared region by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. The relaxation kinetics shows two decay times. The fast time component is ~0.2 ps, which is attributed to the mixture of initial few ultrafast intraband and interband decay channels. The slow component is ~1.5 ps, which is primarily assigned to optical phonon-acoustic phonon scattering. The contribution of fast component exhibits an increase trend in the probe photon frequencies from 2600 to 3100 cm−1. At the probe frequency of 2700 cm−1, the accelerated carrier relaxation was detected, which resulted from the interband triple-resonance electron-phonon scattering in graphene. At the probe frequency of 3175 cm−1, a clear instant negative differential transmission signal was observed, which is due to stimulated two-phonon emission involved with G phonons in graphene. This result indicates that graphene can be used as a source of coherent ultrashort sound-wave emission.

Unraveling the acoustic electron-phonon interaction in graphene

Using a first-principles approach we calculate the acoustic electron-phonon couplings in graphene for the transverse (TA) and longitudinal (LA) acoustic phonons. Analytic forms of the coupling matrix elements valid in the long-wavelength limit are found to give an almost quantitative description of the first-principles based matrix elements even at shorter wavelengths. Using the analytic forms of the coupling matrix elements, we study the acoustic phonon-limited carrier mobility for temperatures 0-200 K and high carrier densities of 10^{12}-10^{13} cm^{-2}. We find that the intrinsic effective acoustic deformation potential of graphene is \Xi_eff = 6.8 eV and that the temperature dependence of the mobility \mu ~ T^{-\alpha} increases beyond an \alpha = 4 dependence even in the absence of screening when the full coupling matrix elements are considered. The large disagreement between our calculated deformation potential and those extracted from experimental measurements (18-29 eV) indicates that additional or modified acoustic phonon-scattering mechanisms are at play in experimental situations.

电子杂质和电子声子相互作用对石墨烯磁光导的影响

电子杂质和电子声子相互作用对石墨烯磁光导的影响

Possibility of superconductivity due to electron-phonon interaction in graphene

We discuss the possibility of superconductivity in graphene taking into account both electron-phonon and electron-electron Coulomb interactions. The analysis is carried out assuming that the Fermi energy is far away from the Dirac points, such that the density of the particles (electrons or holes) is high. We derive proper Eliashberg equations that allow us to estimate the critical superconducting temperature. The most favorable is pairing of electrons belonging to different valleys in the spectrum. By using values of electron-phonon coupling estimated in other publications, we obtain the critical temperature ${T}_{c}$ as a function of the electron (hole) density. This temperature can reach the order of 10 K at the Fermi energy of order $1--2$ eV. We show that the dependence of the intervalley pairing on the impurity concentration should be weak.

Controlling Electron-Phonon Interactions in Graphene at Ultrahigh Carrier Densities

We report on the temperature dependent electron transport in graphene at different carrier densities n. Employing an electrolytic gate, we demonstrate that n can be adjusted up to 4 × 10(14) cm(-2) for both electrons and holes. The measured sample resistivity ρ increases linearly with temperature T in the high temperature limit, indicating that a quasiclassical phonon distribution is responsible for the electron scattering. As T decreases, the resistivity decreases more rapidly following ρ(T) ∼ T(4). This low temperature behavior can be described by a Bloch-Grüneisen model taking into account the quantum distribution of the two-dimensional acoustic phonons in graphene. We map out the density dependence of the characteristic temperature Θ(BG) defining the crossover between the two distinct regimes, and show that, for all n, ρ(T) scales as a universal function of the normalized temperature T/Θ(BG).

Symmetry based analysis of the Kohn anomaly and electron-phonon interaction in graphene and carbon nanotubes

Symmetry based analysis of the electron-phonon coupling in graphene and carbon nanotubes is performed and Kohn anomalies, their Brillouin-zone positions together with the complete set of good quantum numbers are predicted. Interestingly, graphene dynamical representation is found to contain only a small portion of quite a large set of inequivalent irreducible representations of the relevant full symmetry group. Besides, vanishing of the electron-phonon interaction for majority of the normal displacements is also shown to be a consequence of the symmetry. The results are further numerically confirmed within full and tight-binding density-functional calculations and force constants model and enhanced coupling to the Fermi level electrons of the Dirac point ${A}_{1g}$ mode with respect to the $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ point ${E}_{2g}$ mode is confirmed. Finally, energy dispersion of the kink phonon spectrum is analytically evaluated and compared to the classical phonon spectrum.

First-principles analysis of electron-phonon interactions in graphene

The electron-phonon interaction in monolayer graphene is investigated by using density functional perturbation theory. The results indicate that the electron-phonon interaction strength is of comparable magnitude for all four in-plane phonon branches and must be considered simultaneously. Moreover, the calculated scattering rates suggest an acoustic phonon contribution that is much weaker than previously thought, revealing the role of optical phonons even at low energies. Accordingly it is predicted, in good agreement with a recent measurement, that the intrinsic mobility of graphene may be more than an order of magnitude larger than the high values reported in suspended samples.

Two-dimensional electron gases: Theory of ultrafast dynamics of electron-phonon interactions in graphene, surfaces, and quantum wells

Many-particle electron-phonon interaction effects in two-dimensional electron gases are investigated within a Born–Markov approach. We calculate the electron-phonon interaction on a microscopic level to describe relaxation processes of quantum confined electrons on ultrafast time scales. Typical examples, where two-dimensional electron gases play a role, are surfaces and two-dimensional nanostructures such as graphene and quantum wells. In graphene, we find nonequilibrium phonon generation and ultrafast cooling processes after optical excitation. Electron relaxation dynamics at the silicon (001) 2×1 surface exhibits two time scales, corresponding to intrasurface and inside bulk-scattering processes. For GaAs quantum wells, we present broad emission spectra in the terahertz range assisted by LO-phonons of the barrier material.

Van Hove singularity and apparent anisotropy in the electron-phonon interaction in graphene

We show that the electron-phonon coupling strength obtained from the slopes of the electronic energy vs wave vector dispersion relations, as often done in analyzing angle-resolved photoemission data, can differ substantially from the actual electron-phonon coupling strength due to the curvature of the bare electronic bands. This effect becomes particularly important when the Fermi level is close to a van Hove singularity. By performing ab initio calculations on doped graphene, we demonstrate that, while the apparent strength obtained from the slopes of experimental photoemission data is highly anisotropic, the angular dependence of the actual electron-phonon coupling strength in this material is negligible.

Electron transport and full-band electron-phonon interactions in graphene

We developed a full-band Monte Carlo simulator to investigate electron transport in a single layer of graphite (graphene). The electron and phonon dispersion curves of graphene are first obtained by applying the tight-binding method to the two inequivalent atoms of the graphene unit cell, considering their nearest four neighbors. The electron-phonon scattering rates for interactions that conserve momentum and energy are then determined using Fermi’s golden rule and the deformation potential approximation. Average electron velocities due to external fields applied in different directions are calculated using these electron-phonon scattering rates and a semiclassical electron and electric field interaction. Graphene transport simulations at room temperature indicate large low-field graphene electron mobilities of approximately 4.0×104, 6.0×104, and 8.0×104 cm2/Vs along the ky (kx=0), kx=ky, and kx (ky=0) momentum directions, respectively. These low-field electron mobilities further suggest graphene field-effect mobilities of 1.3−2.6×104 cm2/Vs, which agree with experiments. Also, a large peak electron velocity of roughly 4.6×107 cm2/Vs at high fields is obtained.

Interplay of Coulomb and electron-phonon interactions in graphene

We consider the mutual effect of the electron-phonon and strong Coulomb interactions on each other by summing up leading logarithmic corrections via the renormalization group approach. We find that the Coulomb interaction enhances electron coupling to the intervalley ${A}_{1}$ optical phonons, but not to the intravalley ${E}_{2}$ phonons.

Symmetry-based approach to electron-phonon interactions in graphene

We use the symmetries of monolayer graphene to write a set of constraints that must be satisfied by any electron-phonon interaction Hamiltonian. The explicit solution as a series expansion in the momenta gives the most general, model-independent couplings between electrons and long-wavelength acoustic and optical phonons. As an application, the possibility of describing elastic strains in terms of effective electromagnetic fields is considered in detail, with an emphasis on group-theory conditions and the role of time-reversal symmetry.