Gap structure of the Hofstadter system of interacting Dirac fermions in graphene.

The effects of mutual Coulomb interactions between Dirac fermions in monolayer graphene on the Hofstadter energy spectrum are investigated. For two flux quanta per unit cell of the periodic potential, interactions open a gap in each Landau level with the smallest gap in the n=1 Landau level. For more flux quanta through the unit cell, where the noninteracting energy spectra have many gaps in each Landau level, interactions enhance the low-energy gaps and strongly suppress the high-energy gaps and almost close a high-energy gap for n=1. The signature of the interaction effects in the Hofstadter system can be probed through magnetization, which is governed by the mixing of the Landau levels and is enhanced by the Coulomb interaction.

Interacting dirac fermions on a topological insulator in a magnetic field.

We study the fractional quantum Hall states on the surface of a topological insulator thin film in an external magnetic field, where the Dirac fermion nature of the charge carriers have been experimentally established only recently. Our studies indicate that the fractional quantum Hall states should indeed be observable in the surface Landau levels of a topological insulator. The strength of the effect will however be different, compared to that in graphene, due to the finite thickness of the topological insulator film and due to the admixture of Landau levels of the two surfaces of the film. At a small film thickness, that mixture results in a strongly nonmonotonic dependence of the excitation gap on the film thickness. At a large enough thickness of the film, the excitation gap in the lowest two Landau levels are comparable in strength.

Stable Pfaffian state in bilayer graphene.

Here, we show that the incompressible Pfaffian state originally proposed for the 5/2 fractional quantum Hall states in conventional two-dimensional electron systems can actually be found in a bilayer graphene at one of the Landau levels. The properties and stability of the Pfaffian state at this special Landau level strongly depend on the magnetic field strength. The graphene system shows a transition from the incompressible to a compressible state with increasing magnetic field. At a finite magnetic field of ~10 T, the Pfaffian state in bilayer graphene becomes more stable than its counterpart in conventional electron systems.

Controllable driven phase transitions in fractional quantum Hall states in bilayer graphene.

Here we report from our theoretical studies that, in biased bilayer graphene, one can induce phase transitions from an incompressible fractional quantum Hall state to a compressible state by tuning the band gap at a given electron density. The nature of such phase transitions is different for weak and strong interlayer coupling. Although for strong coupling more levels interact there is a lesser number of transitions than for the weak coupling case. The intriguing scenario of tunable phase transitions in the fractional quantum Hall states is unique to bilayer graphene and has never before existed in conventional semiconductor systems.

Unique magnetic signatures of mismatched base pairs in DNA.

Magnetic properties of DNA containing mispairs, such as different conformations of the GA mispair, or a GT mispair inserted into the DNA chain, have been theoretically investigated. The essential ingredients for these studies, the charge transfer integrals, were evaluated from the DNA sequences containing the mispair and optimized in the solvent. We find that the magnetic susceptibilities of the host DNA chain containing a large number of Watson-Crick base pairs are significantly altered in the presence of the mispairs, and the effects depend on the choice of mispairs. In particular, insertion of even a single GA mispair changes the nature of magnetization (sign of the susceptibility) of the host DNA. We propose that measurement of the magnetic properties of DNA might provide a direct route to detection and identification of those mispairs.

Fock-Darwin states of dirac electrons in graphene-based artificial atoms.

We investigate the Fock-Darwin states of the massless chiral fermions confined in a graphitic parabolic quantum dot. In light of Klein tunneling, we analyze the condition for confinement of the Dirac fermions in a cylindrically symmetric potential. New features of the energy levels of the Dirac electrons as compared to the conventional electronic systems are discussed. We also evaluate the dipole-allowed transitions in the energy levels of the dots. We propose that in the high magnetic field limit, the band parameters can be accurately determined from the dipole-allowed transitions.

Fractional quantum Hall States of Dirac electrons in graphene.

We have investigated the fractional quantum Hall states of Dirac electrons in a graphene layer in different Landau levels. The relativistic nature of the energy dispersion relation of electrons in graphene significantly modifies the interelectron interactions. This results in a specific dependence of the ground state energy and the energy gaps for electrons on the Landau-level index. For the valley-polarized states, i.e., at nu=1/m, m being an odd integer, the energy gaps have the largest values in the n=1 Landau level. For the valley-unpolarized states, e.g., for the 2/3 state, the energy gaps are suppressed for n=1 as compared to those at n=0. For both n=1 and n=0, the ground state of the 2/3 system is fully valley-unpolarized.