Tuning a two-impurity Kondo system by a moir\'e superstructure
Abstract
Two-impurity Kondo models are paradigmatic for correlated spin-fermion systems. Working with Mn atoms on Au(111) covered by a monolayer of MoS, we tune the inter-adatom exchange via the adatom distance and the adatom-substrate exchange via the location relative to a moir\'e structure of the substrate. Differential-conductance measurements on isolated adatoms exhibit Kondo peaks with heights depending on the adatom location relative to the moir\'e structure. Mn dimers spaced by a few atomic lattice sites exhibit split Kondo resonances. In contrast, adatoms in closely spaced dimers couple antiferromagnetically, resulting in a molecular-singlet ground state. Exciting the singlet-triplet transition by tunneling electrons, we find that the singlet-triplet splitting is surprisingly sensitive to the moir\'e structure. We interpret our results theoretically by relating the variations in the singlet-triplet splitting to the heights of the Kondo peaks of single adatoms, finding evidence for coupling of the adatom spin to multiple conduction electron channels.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2301.01517,
title = {Tuning a two-impurity Kondo system by a moir\'e superstructure},
author = {Sergey Trishin and Christian Lotze and Friedemann Lohss and Giada Franceschi and Leonid I. Glazman and Felix von Oppen and Katharina J. Franke},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.01517},
year = {2023}
}