RKKY interaction in heavily vacant graphene

TL;DR

This paper studies how vacancies in graphene affect the RKKY magnetic interaction, revealing suppression of oscillations and potential non-Fermi liquid behavior, which could be advantageous for magnetic applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of vacancies on RKKY interaction decay, oscillations, and the possible emergence of non-Fermi liquid behavior in graphene.

Findings

Vacancies reduce the decay exponent towards more negative values.

Atomic scale oscillations are diminished by vacancies, destroying two-valley structure.

Longer-range oscillations are absent in heavily vacant graphene.

Abstract

Dirac electrons in clean graphene can mediate the interactions between two localized magnetic moments. The functional form of the RKKY interaction in pristine graphene is specified by two main features: (i) an atomic scale oscillatory part determined by a wave vector $\vec Q$ connecting the two valleys. Furthermore with doping another longer range oscillation appears which arise from the existence of an extended Fermi surface characterized by a single momentum scale $k_F$. (ii) $R^{\alpha}$ decay in large distances where the exponent $\alpha=-3$ is a distinct feature of undoped Dirac sea (with a linear dispersion relation) in two dimensions. In this work, we investigate the effect of a few percent vacancies on the above properties. Depending on the doping level, if the chemical potential lies on the linear part of the density of states, the exponent $\alpha$ remains close to -3. Otherwise $\alpha$ reduces towards more negative values which means that the combined effect of vacancies and the randomness in their positions makes it harder for the carriers of the medium to mediate the magnetic interaction. Addition of a few percent of vacancies diminishes the atomic scale oscillations of the RKKY interaction signaling the destruction of two-valley structure of the parent graphene material. Surprisingly by allowing the chemical potential to vary, we find that the longer-range oscillations expected to arise from the existence of a $k_F$ scale in the vacant graphene are absent. This may indicate possible non-Fermi liquid behavior by "alloying" graphene with vacancies. The complete absence of oscillations in heavily vacant graphene can be considered an advantage for applications as a uniform sign of the exchange interaction is desirable for magnetic ordering.