Coexistence of electron whispering-gallery modes and atomic collapse states in graphene WSe2 heterostructure quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the coexistence of electron whispering-gallery modes and atomic collapse states in graphene WSe2 heterostructure quantum dots, revealing new quantum phenomena and their evolution under magnetic fields.

Contribution

It reports the first experimental observation of both phenomena coexisting in the same quantum dot system and explores their evolution with magnetic field application.

Findings

Coexistence of whispering-gallery modes and atomic collapse states in graphene quantum dots.

Observation of atomic collapse states near Coulomb impurities in graphene.

Evolution from atomic collapse states to Landau levels under magnetic fields.

Abstract

The relativistic massless charge carriers with a Fermi velocity of about c300 in graphene enable us to realize two distinct types of resonances (c, the speed of light in vacuum). One is electron whispering-gallery mode in graphene quantum dots arising from the Klein tunneling of the massless Dirac fermions. The other is atomic collapse state, which has never been observed in experiment with real atoms due to the difficulty of producing heavy nuclei with charge Z 170, however, can be realized near a Coulomb impurity in graphene with a charge Z 1 because of the small velocity of the Dirac excitations. Here, unexpectedly, we demonstrate that both the electron whispering-gallery modes and atomic collapse states coexist in grapheneWSe2 heterostructure quantum dots due to the Coulomb-like potential near their edges. By applying a perpendicular magnetic field, evolution from the atomic collapse states to unusual Landau levels in the collapse regime are explored for the first time.