Fine Structure Constant Defines Visual Transparency of Graphene

Fine structure constant defines visual transparency of graphene.

There are few phenomena in condensed matter physics that are defined only by the fundamental constants and do not depend on material parameters. Examples are the resistivity quantum, h/e2 (h is Planck's constant and e the electron charge), that appears in a variety of transport experiments and the magnetic flux quantum, h/e, playing an important role in the physics of superconductivity. By and ...

Time Evolution of the Fine Structure Constant

We present a short review of the current quasar (QSO) absorption line constraints on possible variation of the fine structure constant, α ≡ e 2 /¯ hc. Particular attention is paid to recent optical Keck/HIRES spectra of 49 absorption systems which indicate a smaller α in the past [1, 2]. Here we present new preliminary results from 128 absorption systems: ∆α/α = (−0.57 ± 0.10) × 10 −5 over the ...

The Meaning of the Fine Structure Constant

The effective fine-structure constant of freestanding graphene measured in graphite.

Electrons in graphene behave like Dirac fermions, permitting phenomena from high-energy physics to be studied in a solid-state setting. A key question is whether or not these fermions are critically influenced by Coulomb correlations. We performed inelastic x-ray scattering experiments on crystals of graphite and applied reconstruction algorithms to image the dynamical screening of charge in a ...

Uniqueness of the Fine-structure Constant.