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Title: Reexamination of the effective fine structure constant of graphene as measured in graphite

Journal Article · · Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States). Federick Seitz Materials Research Lab., Dept. of Physics
  2. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  3. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
  4. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States). Federick Seitz Materials Research Lab., Dept. of Physics; Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
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Here we present a refined and improved study of the influence of screening on the effective fine structure constant of graphene, α*, as measured in graphite using inelastic x-ray scattering. This followup to our previous study [J. P. Reed et al., Science 330, 805 (2010)] was carried out with two times better energy resolution, five times better momentum resolution, and an improved experimental setup with lower background. We compare our results to random-phase approximation (RPA) calculations and evaluate the relative importance of interlayer hopping, excitonic corrections, and screening from high energy excitations involving the sigma bands. We find that the static, limiting value of α* falls in the range 0.25-0.35, which is higher than our previous result of 0.14, but still below the value expected from RPA. We show the reduced value is not a consequence of interlayer hopping effects, which were ignored in our previous analysis, but of a combination of excitonic effects in the π→ π* particle-hole continuum, and background screening from the σ-bonded electrons. We find that σ-band screening is extremely strong at distances of less than a few nanometers, and should be highly effective at screening out short-distance, Hubbard-like interactions in graphene as well as other carbon allotropes.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; FG02-06ER46285; DMR-1352604; GBMF4542
OSTI ID:
1362106
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1254343; OSTI ID: 1958836
Journal Information:
Physical Review, B: Condensed Matter, Vol. 93, Issue 19; ISSN 0163-1829
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 9 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (24)

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Cited By (4)

A theoretical study of collective plasmonic excitations in double-layer silicene at finite temperature journal March 2019
Anomalous density fluctuations in a strange metal journal May 2018
Calibration of the fine-structure constant of graphene by time-dependent density-functional theory journal November 2017
Anomalous density fluctuations in a strange metal text January 2017

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Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
IXS
graphene
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
Inelastic x-ray scattering
graphene