Quantum Corrections to Thermopower and Conductivity in Graphene

The quantum corrections to the conductivity and the thermopower in monolayer graphene are studied. We use the recursive Green's function method to calculate numerically the conductivity and the thermopower of graphene. We then analyze these weak localization corrections by fitting with the analytical theory as function of the impurity parameters and the gate potential. As a result of the quantum corrections to the thermopower, we find large magnetothermopower which is shown to provide a very sensitive measure of the size and strength of the impurities. We compare these analytical and numerical results with existing experimental measurements of magnetoconductance of single layer graphene and find that the average size and strength of the impurities in these samples can thereby be determined. We suggest favorable parameter ranges for future measurements of the magnetothermopower

Disordered Quantum Spin Chains with Long-Range Antiferromagnetic Interactions

We investigate the magnetic susceptibility $\chi(T)$ of quantum spin chains of $N=1280$ spins with power-law long-range antiferromagnetic coupling as a function of their spatial decay exponent $\alpha$ and cutoff length $\xi$. The calculations are based on the strong disorder renormalization method which is used to obtain the temperature dependence of $\chi(T)$ and distribution functions of couplings at each renormalization step. For the case with only algebraic decay ($\xi = \infty$) we find a crossover at $\alpha^*=1.066$ between a phase with a divergent low-temperature susceptibility $\chi(T\rightarrow 0)$ for $\alpha > \alpha^*$ to a phase with a vanishing $\chi(T\rightarrow 0)$ for $\alpha < \alpha^*$. For finite cutoff lengths $\xi$, this crossover occurs at a smaller $\alpha^*(\xi)$. Additionally we study the localization of spin excitations for $\xi = \infty$ by evaluating the distribution function of excitation energies and we find a delocalization transition that coincides with the opening of the pseudo-gap at $\alpha_c=\alpha^*$.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

RKKY Interaction in Disordered Graphene

We investigate the effects of nonmagnetic disorder on the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yoshida (RKKY) interaction in graphene by studying numerically the Anderson model with on-site and hopping disorder on a honeycomb lattice at half filling. We evaluate the strength of the interaction as a function of the distance R between two magnetic ions, as well as their lattice positions and orientations. In the clean limit, we find that the strength of the interaction decays as 1/R^3, with its sign and oscillation amplitude showing strong anisotropy. With increasing on-site disorder, the mean amplitude decreases exponentially at distances exceeding the elastic mean free path. At smaller distances, however, the oscillation amplitude increases strongly and its sign changes on the same sublattice for all directions but the armchair direction. For random hopping disorder, no sign change is observed. No significant changes to the geometrical average values of the RKKY interaction are found at small distances, while exponential suppression is observed at distances exceeding the localization length.Comment: 4+\epsilon\ pages, 5 figure

Kondo-Anderson Transitions

Dilute magnetic impurities in a disordered Fermi liquid are considered close to the Anderson metal-insulator transition (AMIT). Critical Power law correlations between electron wave functions at different energies in the vicinity of the AMIT result in the formation of pseudogaps of the local density of states. Magnetic impurities can remain unscreened at such sites. We determine the density of the resulting free magnetic moments in the zero temperature limit. While it is finite on the insulating side of the AMIT, it vanishes at the AMIT, and decays with a power law as function of the distance to the AMIT. Since the fluctuating spins of these free magnetic moments break the time reversal symmetry of the conduction electrons, we find a shift of the AMIT, and the appearance of a semimetal phase. The distribution function of the Kondo temperature $T_{K}$ is derived at the AMIT, in the metallic phase and in the insulator phase. This allows us to find the quantum phase diagram in an external magnetic field $B$ and at finite temperature $T$. We calculate the resulting magnetic susceptibility, the specific heat, and the spin relaxation rate as function of temperature. We find a phase diagram with finite temperature transitions between insulator, critical semimetal, and metal phases. These new types of phase transitions are caused by the interplay between Kondo screening and Anderson localization, with the latter being shifted by the appearance of the temperature-dependent spin-flip scattering rate. Accordingly, we name them Kondo-Anderson transitions (KATs).Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure

Nonperturbative Scaling Theory of Free Magnetic Moment Phases in Disordered Metals

The crossover between a free magnetic moment phase and a Kondo phase in low dimensional disordered metals with dilute magnetic impurities is studied. We perform a finite size scaling analysis of the distribution of the Kondo temperature as obtained from a numerical renormalization group calculation of the local magnetic susceptibility and from the solution of the self-consistent Nagaoka-Suhl equation. We find a sizable fraction of free (unscreened) magnetic moments when the exchange coupling falls below a disorder-dependent critical value $J_{\rm c}$. Our numerical results show that between the free moment phase due to Anderson localization and the Kondo screened phase there is a phase where free moments occur due to the appearance of random local pseudogaps at the Fermi energy whose width and power scale with the elastic scattering rate $1/\tau$.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Universal Distribution of Kondo Temperatures in Dirty Metals

Kondo screening of diluted magnetic impurities in a disordered host is studied analytically and numerically in one, two and three dimensions. It is shown that in the T_K \to 0 limit the distribution of Kondo temperatures has a universal form, P(T_K) \sim T_K^{-\alpha} that holds in the insulating phase and persists in the metallic phase close to the metal insulator transition. Moreover, the exponent \alpha depends only on the dimensionality. The most important consequence of this result is that the T-dependence of thermodynamic properties is smooth across the metal-insulator transition in three dimensional systems.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; added referenc

Symmetry Dependence of Localization in Quasi- 1- dimensional Disordered Wires

The crossover in energy level statistics of a quasi-1-dimensional disordered wire as a function of its length L is used, in order to derive its averaged localization length, without magnetic field, in a magnetic field and for moderate spin orbit scattering strength. An analytical function of the magnetic field for the local level spacing is obtained, and found to be in excellent agreement with the magnetic field dependent activation energy, recently measured in low-mobility quasi-one-dimensional wires\cite{khavin}. This formula can be used to extract directly and accurately the localization length from magnetoresistance experiments. In general, the local level spacing is shown to be proportional to the excitation gap of a virtual particle, moving on a compact symmetric space.Comment: 4 pages, 2 Eqs. added, Eperimental Data included in Fig.

RKKY Interactions in Graphene: Dependence on Disorder and Gate Voltage

We report the dependence of Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yoshida\,(RKKY) interaction on nonmagmetic disorder and gate voltage in grapheme. First the semiclassical method is employed to reserve the expression for RKKY interaction in clean graphene. Due to the pseudogap at Dirac point, the RKKY coupling in undoped grapheme is found to be proportional to $1/R^3$. Next, we investigate how the RKKY interaction depends on nonmagnetic disorder strength and gate voltage by studying numerically the Anderson tight-binding model on a honeycomb lattice. We observe that the RKKY interaction along the armchair direction is more robust to nonmagnetic disorder than in other directions. This effect can be explained semiclassically: The presence of multiple shortest paths between two lattice sites in the armchair directions is found to be responsible for the reduceddisorder sensitivity. We also present the distribution of the RKKY interaction for the zigzag and armchair directions. We identify three different shapes of the distributions which are repeated periodically along the zigzag direction, while only one kind, and more narrow distribution, is observed along the armchair direction. Moreover, we find that the distribution of amplitudes of the RKKY interaction crosses over from a non-Gaussian shape with very long tails to a completely log-normal distribution when increasing the nonmagnetic disorder strength. The width of the log-normal distribution is found to linearly increase with the strength of disorder, in agreement with analytical predictions. At finite gate voltage near the Dirac point, Friedel oscillation appears in addition to the oscillation from the interference between two Dirac points. This results in a beating pattern. We study how these beating patterns are effected by the nonmagnetic disorder in doped graphene