Past Events

Abstract:

Graphene is currently one of the most actively studied materials in condensed matter physics. Its beautiful simplicity and unique mechanical, thermal, electrical properties have earned graphene the appellative of dream material among people in the media and continues to kindle the interest of researchers since its discovery half a decade ago. While the non-interacting massless Dirac fermion picture successfully accounts for many of its properties, it was soon realized that electron interactions can easily lead to broken symmetries typically when the density of states near the Fermi energy is increased. We will discuss on the nature of some exotic properties of graphene without parallel in other materials. The first example will consist on the features of zigzag edge induced magnetism related with the highly unusual localization properties of their edge state wave functions which constitutes a stepping stone in our understanding of carbon based magnetism. Then we will move on to discuss the magnetic field induced insulating states in graphene which has been a subject of recent controversy and puzzle. We will provide a plausible explanation of the experiments based on the underlying microscopic density wave character of the solutions arising from the selective occupation of the honeycomb sublattices by different valley index n=0 Landau levels of graphene.

Coffee and tea will be served 20 minutes prior to the seminar.