Frustrated supercritical collapse in tunable charge arrays on graphene

Jiong Lu (), Hsin-Zon Tsai, Alpin N. Tatan, Sebastian Wickenburg, Arash A. Omrani, Dillon Wong, Alexander Riss, Erik Piatti, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, Alex Zettl, Vitor M. Pereira () and Michael F. Crommie ()
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Jiong Lu: University of California at Berkeley
Hsin-Zon Tsai: University of California at Berkeley
Alpin N. Tatan: National University of Singapore
Sebastian Wickenburg: University of California at Berkeley
Arash A. Omrani: University of California at Berkeley
Dillon Wong: University of California at Berkeley
Alexander Riss: University of California at Berkeley
Erik Piatti: University of California at Berkeley
Kenji Watanabe: National Institute for Materials, Science, 1-1 Namiki
Takashi Taniguchi: National Institute for Materials, Science, 1-1 Namiki
Alex Zettl: University of California at Berkeley
Vitor M. Pereira: National University of Singapore
Michael F. Crommie: University of California at Berkeley

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The photon-like behavior of electrons in graphene causes unusual confinement properties that depend strongly on the geometry and strength of the surrounding potential. We report bottom-up synthesis of atomically-precise one-dimensional (1D) arrays of point charges on graphene that allow exploration of a new type of supercritical confinement of graphene carriers. The arrays were synthesized by arranging F4TCNQ molecules into a 1D lattice on back-gated graphene, allowing precise tuning of both the molecular charge and the array periodicity. While dilute arrays of ionized F4TCNQ molecules are seen to behave like isolated subcritical charges, dense arrays show emergent supercriticality. In contrast to compact supercritical clusters, these extended arrays display both supercritical and subcritical characteristics and belong to a new physical regime termed “frustrated supercritical collapse”. Here carriers in the far-field are attracted by a supercritical charge distribution, but their fall to the center is frustrated by subcritical potentials in the near-field, similar to trapping of light by a dense cluster of stars in general relativity.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08371-2

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