Concomitant enhancement of electron-phonon coupling and electron-electron interaction in graphene decorated with ytterbium

TL;DR

This study investigates how ytterbium decoration on graphene enhances both electron-phonon coupling and electron-electron interactions, revealing their possible interplay in modifying graphene's electronic properties.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence of simultaneous enhancement of electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions in ytterbium-decorated graphene, highlighting their interplay.

Findings

Enhanced electron-phonon coupling in ytterbium-decorated graphene

Decrease in Fermi velocity indicating stronger electron-electron interaction

Potential interplay between many-body interactions in decorated graphene

Abstract

The interplay between electron-electron interaction and electron-phonon coupling has been one of the key issues in graphene as it can provide information on the origin of enhanced electron-phonon coupling in graphene by foreign atoms. In ytterbium-decorated graphene on SiC substrate, electron-phonon coupling exhibits strong enhancement compared to that of as-grown graphene. Based on angle-resolved photoemission study, the presence of ytterbium is also found to result in the decrease of Fermi velocity, revealing the enhancement of electron-electron interaction within the Fermi liquid theory. Our finding on the concomitant enhancement of electron-electron interaction and electron-phonon coupling suggests a possibility of the interplay between the two representative many-body interactions in graphene decorated with foreign atoms.