Drude Conductivity of Dirac Fermions in Graphene

Abstract

Electrons moving in graphene behave as massless Dirac fermions, and they exhibit fascinating low-frequency electrical transport phenomena. Their dynamic response, however, is little known at frequencies above one terahertz (THz). Such knowledge is important not only for a deeper understanding of the Dirac electron quantum transport, but also for graphene applications in ultrahigh speed THz electronics and IR optoelectronics. In this paper, we report the first measurement of high-frequency conductivity of graphene from THz to mid-IR at different carrier concentrations. The conductivity exhibits Drude-like frequency dependence and increases dramatically at THz frequencies, but its absolute strength is substantially lower than theoretical predictions. This anomalous reduction of free electron oscillator strength is corroborated by corresponding changes in graphene interband transitions, as required by the sum rule. Our surprising observation indicates that many-body effects and Dirac fermion-impurity interactions beyond current transport theories are important for Dirac fermion electrical response in graphene.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA526672

Entities

People

  • Alex Zettl
  • Baisong Geng
  • Caglar Girit
  • Chi-fan Chen
  • Hans A. Bechtel
  • Hao Zhao
  • Jason Horng
  • Michael F. Crommie
  • Michael K. Martin
  • Yuanbo Zhang

Organizations

  • University of California, Berkeley

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Charge Carriers
  • Chemical Vapor Deposition
  • Dynamic Response
  • Electron Holes
  • Electrons
  • Fermions
  • Free Electrons
  • Frequency
  • Materials
  • Materials Science
  • Measurement
  • Oscillators
  • Physics
  • Scattering
  • Spectroscopy
  • Terahertz Radiation
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Microelectronics - Graphene
  • Quantum Computing