Localization and One-Parameter Scaling in Hydrogenated Graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a metal-insulator transition in hydrogenated graphene caused by hydrogen-induced disorder, showing localization effects and one-parameter scaling behavior similar to 2D disordered systems.

Contribution

It reveals the occurrence of a disorder-driven metal-insulator transition in hydrogenated graphene and characterizes its scaling properties.

Findings

Hydrogen creates short-range disorder in graphene.

Localization of states near the neutrality point increases with hydrogen coverage.

Conductance decays exponentially with sample size, fitting a one-parameter scaling function.

Abstract

We report a metal-insulator transition in disordered graphene with low coverages of hydrogen atoms. Hydrogen interacting with graphene creates short-range disorder and localizes states near the neutrality point. The energy range of localization grows with increasing of H concentration. Calculations show that the conductances through low-energy propagating channels decay exponentially with sample size and are well fitted by one-parameter scaling function, similar to a disorder-driven metal-insulator transition in 2-dimensional disordered systems.