Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

HL 19: Transport: Graphene and Carbon Nanostructures (jointly with DY, DS, HL, MA, O)

HL 19.12: Talk

Monday, March 20, 2017, 18:00–18:15, HSZ 204

Quantum phase transition in effective spin ladders derived from graphene nanoribbons — •Cornelie Koop and Stefan Wessel — Institut für Theoretische Festkörperphysik, RWTH Aachen University

Zigzag edges of graphene nanoribbons host localized edge states, which show a ferromagnetic coupling along each edge and an antiferromagnetic one to the opposite edge. Using an effective model that treats the edge-bulk interaction as a perturbation to the edge-edge interaction, we can drastically reduce the numerical effort needed for this system, and we eventually find a rather general spin ladder model.

We examine this model at low, but finite temperatures by means of Monte-Carlo techniques using the stochastic series expansion method. Susceptibilities and correlation functions can be investigated. We find a quantum-phase transition (QPT), as a function of the antiferromagnetic inter-leg coupling strength, between a weak-coupling phase with long-range ferromagnetic order along each leg, which does not have a spin excitation gap, and a disordered, gapped singlet-phase. The location and estimates for the critical exponents are assessed by numerical methods and compared to known results from renormalization group calculations.