Theory of electronic and spin-orbit proximity effects in graphene on Cu(111)

We study orbital and spin-orbit proximity effects in graphene adsorbed to the Cu(111) surface by means of density functional theory (DFT). The proximity effects are caused mainly by the hybridization of graphene [pi] and copper d orbitals. Our electronic structure calculations agree well with the ex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B 2016-04, Vol.93 (15), Article 155142
Main Authors: Frank, Tobias, Gmitra, Martin, Fabian, Jaroslav
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed matter
Copper
Graphene
Mathematical models
Orbitals
Proximity
Proximity effect (electricity)
Spin-orbit interactions
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Summary:We study orbital and spin-orbit proximity effects in graphene adsorbed to the Cu(111) surface by means of density functional theory (DFT). The proximity effects are caused mainly by the hybridization of graphene [pi] and copper d orbitals. Our electronic structure calculations agree well with the experimentally observed features. We carry out a graphene-Cu(111) distance dependent study to obtain proximity orbital and spin-orbit coupling parameters, by fitting the DFT results to a robust low energy model Hamiltonian. We find a strong distance dependence of the Rashba and intrinsic proximity induced spin-orbit coupling parameters, which are in the meV and hundreds of [mu]eV range, respectively, for experimentally relevant distances. The Dirac spectrum of graphene also exhibits a proximity orbital gap, of about 20 meV. Furthermore, we find a band inversion within the graphene states accompanied by a reordering of spin and pseudospin states, when graphene is pressed towards copper.
ISSN:2469-9950
2469-9969
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.93.155142