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Observations of abundant structural and electronic phases in potassium-doped single-layer p-quaterphenyl film

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Abstract

Scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy is applied herein to study the pristine and potassium (K)-doped single-layer p-quaterphenyl (P4P) films grown on the Au(111) substrate at the molecular level. Abundant complex structural and electronic phases are induced by various K doping. The Fermi-level pinning effect is observed at a low doping level. On the contrary, K3P4P exhibits intriguing versatile phases and properties because charge carriers are effectively doped in. For example, two kinds of molecular vibration modes with energies below 100 meV are observed, indicating a possible strong electron-phonon coupling. The splitting of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital state in K3P4P illustrates an electronic correlation effect, and its strength varies for four different K3P4P phases with different structures. In addition, the appearance of a Kondo resonance on the molecular vacancy/impurity implies a local molecular magnetic moment. Our results demonstrate that the complex electronic properties of an alkali metal-doped P4P/Au film stem from the existence of many competing interactions, such as electron-electron correlations and electron-vibration coupling, which can be effectively tuned via variable carrier doping and molecular structure. Our work also opens new routes toward engineering novel molecular devices and creating new electronic phases in strongly correlated molecular materials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Wei Chen, MingQiang Ren, Tong Zhang, YaJun Yan & DongLai Feng

  2. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    YaJun Yan & DongLai Feng

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Tong Zhang & DongLai Feng

Authors
  1. Wei Chen
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  2. MingQiang Ren
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  3. Tong Zhang
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  4. YaJun Yan
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  5. DongLai Feng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to YaJun Yan.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11774060), the National Key R&D Program of the MOST of China (Grant Nos. 2016YFA0300200, 2017YFA0303004, 2017YFA0303104, 2016YFA0302300, and 2017YFA0303003), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2015CB921700), the Science Challenge Project (Grant No. TZ2016004), and the Shanghai Education Development Foundation and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Chenguang Program).

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Chen, W., Ren, M., Zhang, T. et al. Observations of abundant structural and electronic phases in potassium-doped single-layer p-quaterphenyl film. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 64, 256811 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-020-1671-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-020-1671-y

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