Kondo effect and spin-orbit coupling in graphene quantum dots.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34650056.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-26149-3 and PMC identifier 8516925.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
The Kondo effect is a cornerstone in the study of strongly correlated fermions. The coherent exchange coupling of conduction electrons to local magnetic moments gives rise to a Kondo cloud that screens the impurity spin. Here we report on the interplay between spin-orbit interaction and the Kondo effect, that can lead to a underscreened Kondo effects in quantum dots in bilayer graphene. More generally, we introduce a different experimental platform for studying Kondo physics. In contrast to carbon nanotubes, where nanotube chirality determines spin-orbit coupling breaking the SU(4) symmetry of the electronic states relevant for the Kondo effect, we study a planar carbon material where a small spin-orbit coupling of nominally flat graphene is enhanced by zero-point out-of-plane phonons. The resulting two-electron triplet ground state in bilayer graphene dots provides a route to exploring the Kondo effect with a small spin-orbit interaction.