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Seeing many-body effects in single- and few-layer graphene: Observation of two-dimensional saddle-point excitons

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

K.F. Mak
J. Shan
T.F. Heinz

Abstract

Significant excitonic effects were observed in graphene by measuring its optical conductivity in a broad spectral range including the two-dimensional π-band saddle-point singularities in the electronic structure. The strong electron-hole interactions manifest themselves in an asymmetric resonance peaked at 4.62 eV, which is redshifted by nearly 600 meV from the value predicted by ab initio GW calculations for the band-to-band transitions. The observed excitonic resonance is explained within a phenomenological model as a Fano interference of a strongly coupled excitonic state and a band continuum. Our experiment also showed a weak dependence of the excitonic resonance in few-layer graphene on layer thickness. This result reflects the effective cancellation of the increasingly screened repulsive electron-electron (e-e) and attractive electron-hole (e-h) interactions. © 2011 American Physical Society.

Date Published

Journal

Physical Review Letters

Volume

106

Issue

4

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-79251493359&doi=10.1103%2fPhysRevLett.106.046401&partnerID=40&md5=42234390f7a829d97ec146ac555e0807

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.046401

Group (Lab)

Kin Fai Mak Group

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