Band Gap Opening in Bilayer Graphene-CrCl3/CrBr3/CrI3 van der Waals Interfaces.

ABSTRACT

We report experimental investigations of transport through bilayer graphene (BLG)/chromium trihalide (CrX3; X = Cl, Br, I) van der Waals interfaces. In all cases, a large charge transfer from BLG to CrX3 takes place (reaching densities in excess of 1013 cm-2), and generates an electric field perpendicular to the interface that opens a band gap in BLG. We determine the gap from the activation energy of the conductivity and find excellent agreement with the latest theory accounting for the contribution of the σ bands to the BLG dielectric susceptibility. We further show that for BLG/CrCl3 and BLG/CrBr3 the band gap can be extracted from the gate voltage dependence of the low-temperature conductivity, and use this finding to refine the gap dependence on the magnetic field. Our results allow a quantitative comparison of the electronic properties of BLG with theoretical predictions and indicate that electrons occupying the CrX3 conduction band are correlated.