Regensburg 2016 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 30: 1D Metal Wires on Semiconductors I

O 30.3: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 8, 2016, 11:00–11:30, S052

Taking Nanoscience to the Edge -- The Different Appearances of One-Dimensional Physics — •Jörg Schäfer — Physikalisches Institut and Röntgen Center for Complex Material Systems (RCCM), Universität Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg, Germany

The technologies to fabricate nanostructures on surfaces with atomic precision have become very elaborate, making it possible to play with low-dimensional physical phenomena: among these, approaches to the one-dimensional (1D) world offer a particularly rich arena. What can we expect here? With the lack of effective screening, and in the presence of quasi-1D electron states that promote particular scattering vectors, these systems become susceptible to symmetry-breaking ground states. Idealized examples include, e.g., Peierls instabilities or magnetic ordering -- while in real-word systems these phenomena may be far more complex.

The study of such quasi-1D systems on semiconductor surfaces, i.e., atomic wires, has made tremendous progress in the last years. In my talk I will review some of the most interesting realizations. Specifically, I will address the scenarios encountered for multi-band metallic chains with strong spin-orbit coupling, and their tunability. Moreover, as a recent development, we will turn to the step edges of terraced substrates with honeycomb chains, that show strong indications for spin polarization and long-range magnetic ordering. Such setup has intriguing connections to honeycomb topological insulators, predicted to have 1D edge states. The talk will look at this developing field from an overview perspective.