Massive and massless charge carriers in an epitaxially strained alkali metal quantum well on graphene.

Hell, Martin; Ehlen, Niels; Marini, Giovanni; Falke, Yannic; Senkovskiy, Boris V; Herbig, Charlotte; Teichert, Christian; Jolie, Wouter et al. · Nat Commun · 2020

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We show that Cs intercalated bilayer graphene acts as a substrate for the growth of a strained Cs film hosting quantum well states with high electronic quality. The Cs film grows in an fcc phase with a substantially reduced lattice constant of 4.9 Å corresponding to a compressive strain of 11% compared to bulk Cs. We investigate its electronic structure using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and show the coexistence of massless Dirac and massive Schrödinger charge carriers in two dimensions. Analysis of the electronic self-energy of the massive charge carriers reveals the crystallographic direction in which a two-dimensional Fermi gas is realized. Our work introduces the growth of strained metal quantum wells on intercalated Dirac matter.