Artificial graphene (AG) is a man-made nanomaterial that can be constructed by arranging molecules on a metal surface or by fabricating a quantum-dot lattice in a semiconductor heterostructure. In both cases, AG resembles graphene in many ways, but it also has additional appealing features such as tunability with respect to the lattice constant, system size and geometry, and edge configuration.
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| Designer Dirac fermions and topological phases in molecular graphene. Gomes et al. NATURE | VOL 483 | 15 MARCH 2012 |
What are we going to do next: In particular, we demonstrate the formation of the Dirac point as a function of the lattice size and its response to an external, perpendicular magnetic field. Secondly,we examine the complex behaviour of the energy levels as functions of both the system size and magnetic field. Eventually, we find the formation of "Hofstadter butterfly"-type patterns in the energy spectrum. I will report about our findings as soon as they are published.
What is the connection to finance: Although not obvious the numerical methods to solve equations like the Schrödinger equation extremely fast and efficient help us to improve our numerical finance codes. Algorithms and methods used in UnRisk have proofed to work also in the fields of physics and industrial mathematics for years.
