Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 5: Surface Magnetism and Topological Insulators (joint session MA/TT)
MA 5.3: Talk
Monday, March 9, 2026, 10:00–10:15, POT/0351
Image-potential states on a 2D Gr-ferromagnet hybrid: enhancing spin and stacking sensing — Maciej Bazarnik1,2 and •Anika Schlenhoff1,2 — 1Institute of Physics, University of Münster, Germany — 2Department of Physics, University of Hamburg, Germany
With the increasing research interest in 2D materials, image-potential states (IPSs) have regained attention as sensitive probes, e.g. for a charge transfer at buried graphene(Gr)-metal interfaces. For a Gr-ferromagnet hybrid, the question arises how IPSs sense a respective spin transfer laterally varying within the moiré heterostructure.
Here, we present spin-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy studies on Fe intercalated Gr/Ir(111), that show the IPSs’ sensitivity to the spatial variation of the Gr-Fe distance, and of the interfacial charge and spin transfer within the moiré unit cell [1]. A stacking contrast between fcc and hcp sites, indistinguishable in the direct tunneling mode, is provided by the IPSs. We observe a moiré-site- and energy-dependent spin-polarization of the IPSs that can be mapped across the entire moiré unit cell. Unlike the electronic states around the Fermi energy, the lowest IPSs are found to exhibit a high spin-polarization on the on-top sites attributed to their interfacial character at the respective Gr-Fe distance.
Since the physisorbed Gr is only weakly spin-polarized on these sites, our work demonstrates that the lowest order IPSs can be used to locally sense the spin density at magnetic interfaces buried by a nonmagnetic passivation layer.
[1] M. Bazarnik and A. Schlenhoff, ACS Nano 19, 25812 (2025).
Keywords: graphene; magnetism; STM/STS; buried interface; moiré structure