Chen-ping ZHU (朱陈平), Xiao-ting LIU (刘小廷), Zhi-ming GU (古志鸣)
Cover illustration
The recent achievements in fabricating nanostructured graphene devices have led to number of exciting advances in the field of carbon-based mesoscopic physics and quantum transport. As an important example, graphene quantum dots are promising candidates for future implementation of spin-based qubits with long spin coherence times exceeding values known from today’s III-V material quantum dots. The two limiting factors— spin－orbit interactions and hyperfine splitting—that lower spin lifetimes in these materials are expected to be far less prominent in graphene leading to more reliable devices. On the way to these systems a number of technological challenges have still to be overcome, such as for example well-behaving tunneling barriers and controllable confinement potentials. These efforts not only will bridge molecular and solid state physics but they will open also the door to many more interesting details of confined quasi-particles in graphene allowing to make use of the special graphene material properties in future mesoscopic devices. More details could be found in the article “Transport in graphene nanostructures” by Christoph Stampfer et al., pp 271－293. [Photo credits: Christoph STAMPFER, RWTH Aachen University, Germany].
