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Colloquium diei: “Emerging (spin) physics in graphene and novel two-dimensional materials”

Colloquium_Diei-loguinho-150Graphene is fascinating in many ways. It is an ultimately thin and unusually strong material, an almost perfect electrical and heat conductor, and a test tube for universal relativistic Dirac physics in a solid. Its optical absorption is given by the fine structure constant. What about its spin properties? Is graphene a perfect spin conductor? In this colloquium I will introduce graphene and other novel two-dimensional materials, describe their surprising and unusual physical properties, and then touch upon some new spin physics they exhibit. The spin physics will be related to the spin-orbit (Rashba) fields and topological quantum spin Hall effects.

Band structure topologies of graphene. Without spin-orbit coupling (SOC) graphene bands exhibit the familiar Dirac cones touching at the Dirac point. With spin-orbit coupling, graphene exhibits a finite gap. If a transverse electric field is applied, breaking the space inversion symmetry of graphene, bands are further spin split by the Rashba effect. The magnitude of the electric field determines the band topology.

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Instituto de Física de São Carlos - IFSC Universidade de São Paulo - USP
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