Experimental Evidence of Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Kekulé-Ordered Graphene

Changhua Bao; Hongyun Zhang; Teng Zhang; Xi Wu; Laipeng Luo; Shaohua Zhou; Qian Li; Yanhui Hou; Wei Yao; Liwei Liu; Pu Yu; Jia Li; Wenhui Duan; Hong Yao; Yeliang Wang; Shuyun Zhou

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.206804

Experimental Evidence of Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Kekulé-Ordered Graphene

Changhua Bao, Hongyun Zhang, Teng Zhang, Xi Wu, Laipeng Luo, Shaohua Zhou, Qian Li, Yanhui Hou, Wei Yao, Liwei Liu, Pu Yu, Jia Li, Wenhui Duan, Hong Yao, Yeliang Wang, Shuyun Zhou^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Integrated Circuits and Electronics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

80 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The low-energy excitations of graphene are relativistic massless Dirac fermions with opposite chiralities at valleys K and K′. Breaking the chiral symmetry could lead to gap opening in analogy to dynamical mass generation in particle physics. Here we report direct experimental evidences of chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) from both microscopic and spectroscopic measurements in a Li-intercalated graphene. The CSB is evidenced by gap opening at the Dirac point, Kekulé-O type modulation, and chirality mixing near the gap edge. Our work opens up opportunities for investigating CSB related physics in a Kekulé-ordered graphene.

Original language	English
Article number	206804
Journal	Physical Review Letters
Volume	126
Issue number	20
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.206804
Publication status	Published - 19 May 2021

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10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.206804

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title = "Experimental Evidence of Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Kekul{\'e}-Ordered Graphene",

abstract = "The low-energy excitations of graphene are relativistic massless Dirac fermions with opposite chiralities at valleys K and K′. Breaking the chiral symmetry could lead to gap opening in analogy to dynamical mass generation in particle physics. Here we report direct experimental evidences of chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) from both microscopic and spectroscopic measurements in a Li-intercalated graphene. The CSB is evidenced by gap opening at the Dirac point, Kekul{\'e}-O type modulation, and chirality mixing near the gap edge. Our work opens up opportunities for investigating CSB related physics in a Kekul{\'e}-ordered graphene.",

author = "Changhua Bao and Hongyun Zhang and Teng Zhang and Xi Wu and Laipeng Luo and Shaohua Zhou and Qian Li and Yanhui Hou and Wei Yao and Liwei Liu and Pu Yu and Jia Li and Wenhui Duan and Hong Yao and Yeliang Wang and Shuyun Zhou",

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day = "19",

doi = "10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.206804",

language = "English",

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T1 - Experimental Evidence of Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Kekulé-Ordered Graphene

AU - Bao, Changhua

AU - Zhang, Hongyun

AU - Zhang, Teng

AU - Wu, Xi

AU - Luo, Laipeng

AU - Zhou, Shaohua

AU - Li, Qian

AU - Hou, Yanhui

AU - Yao, Wei

AU - Liu, Liwei

AU - Yu, Pu

AU - Li, Jia

AU - Duan, Wenhui

AU - Yao, Hong

AU - Wang, Yeliang

AU - Zhou, Shuyun

PY - 2021/5/19

Y1 - 2021/5/19

N2 - The low-energy excitations of graphene are relativistic massless Dirac fermions with opposite chiralities at valleys K and K′. Breaking the chiral symmetry could lead to gap opening in analogy to dynamical mass generation in particle physics. Here we report direct experimental evidences of chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) from both microscopic and spectroscopic measurements in a Li-intercalated graphene. The CSB is evidenced by gap opening at the Dirac point, Kekulé-O type modulation, and chirality mixing near the gap edge. Our work opens up opportunities for investigating CSB related physics in a Kekulé-ordered graphene.

AB - The low-energy excitations of graphene are relativistic massless Dirac fermions with opposite chiralities at valleys K and K′. Breaking the chiral symmetry could lead to gap opening in analogy to dynamical mass generation in particle physics. Here we report direct experimental evidences of chiral symmetry breaking (CSB) from both microscopic and spectroscopic measurements in a Li-intercalated graphene. The CSB is evidenced by gap opening at the Dirac point, Kekulé-O type modulation, and chirality mixing near the gap edge. Our work opens up opportunities for investigating CSB related physics in a Kekulé-ordered graphene.

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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.206804

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.206804

M3 - Article

C2 - 34110212

AN - SCOPUS:85106553976

SN - 0031-9007

VL - 126

JO - Physical Review Letters

JF - Physical Review Letters

IS - 20

M1 - 206804

ER -

Experimental Evidence of Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Kekulé-Ordered Graphene

Abstract

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