Visualization and Control of Single Electron Charging in Bilayer Graphene Quantum Dots

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the experimental control and visualization of single-electron charging phenomena in bilayer graphene quantum dots, revealing how massive Dirac fermions behave in confined p-n junctions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel STM-based method to create and study bilayer graphene quantum dots with tunable properties, highlighting the behavior of massive Dirac fermions in these structures.

Findings

Quantum dots exhibit sharp spectroscopic resonances.

Spatial maps show concentric rings indicating electron charging.

Charging behavior is tunable via electrostatic gates.

Abstract

Graphene p-n junctions provide an ideal platform for investigating novel behavior at the boundary between electronics and optics that arise from massless Dirac fermions, such as whispering gallery modes and Veselago lensing. Bilayer graphene also hosts Dirac fermions, but they differ from single-layer graphene charge carriers because they are massive, can be gapped by an applied perpendicular electric field, and have very different pseudospin selection rules across a p-n junction. Novel phenomena predicted for these massive Dirac fermions at p-n junctions include anti-Klein tunneling, oscillatory Zener tunneling, and electron cloaked states. Despite these predictions there has been little experimental focus on the microscopic spatial behavior of massive Dirac fermions in the presence of p-n junctions. Here we report the experimental manipulation and characterization of massive Dirac fermions within bilayer graphene quantum dots defined by circular p-n junctions through the use of scanning tunneling microscopy-based (STM) methods. Our p-n junctions are created via a flexible technique that enables realization of exposed quantum dots in bilayer graphene/hBN heterostructures. These quantum dots exhibit sharp spectroscopic resonances that disperse in energy as a function of applied gate voltage. Spatial maps of these features show prominent concentric rings with diameters that can be tuned by an electrostatic gate. This behavior is explained by single-electron charging of localized states that arise from the quantum confinement of massive Dirac fermions within our exposed bilayer graphene quantum dots.