Electrons that behave like light are Dirac electrons. Dirac electrons have been in monolayer graphene and now they are seen in twelve-sided graphene quasicrystal. They have useful and unique electronic properties which are useful for probing new physics and they might be useful for spintronics and quantum computers. Those might be far faster forms of computing.
Electrons in monolayer graphene are described by massless Dirac electrons, which exhibit unique quantum phenomena due to the pseudospin and Berry phase of the massless electron.
A tunable bandgap up to 200 meV can be induced in bilayer graphene with electrical gating.
Science – Dirac electrons in a dodecagonal graphene quasicrystal
Dirac fermions in quasicrystalline graphene
Quasicrystal lattices, which can have rotational order but lack translational symmetry, can be used to explore electronic properties of materials between crystals and disordered solids. Ahn et al. grew graphene bilayers rotated exactly 30° that have 12-fold rotational order. Electron diffraction and microscopy confirmed the formation of quasicrystals, and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy revealed anomalous interlayer electronic coupling that was quasi-periodic. The millimeter-scale layers can potentially be transferred to other substrates.
Abstract
Quantum states of quasiparticles in solids are dictated by symmetry. We have experimentally demonstrated quantum states of Dirac electrons in a two-dimensional quasicrystal without translational symmetry. A dodecagonal quasicrystalline order was realized by epitaxial growth of twisted bilayer graphene rotated exactly 30°. We grew the graphene quasicrystal up to a millimeter scale on a silicon carbide surface while maintaining the single rotation angle over an entire sample and successfully isolated the quasicrystal from a substrate, demonstrating its structural and chemical stability under ambient conditions. Multiple Dirac cones replicated with the 12-fold rotational symmetry were observed in angle-resolved photoemission spectra, which revealed anomalous strong interlayer coupling with quasi-periodicity. Our study provides a way to explore physical properties of relativistic fermions with controllable quasicrystalline orders.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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