Experimental evidence of plasmarons and effective fine structure constant in electron-doped graphene/h-BN heterostructure

Abstract Electron-electron interaction is fundamental in condensed matter physics and can lead to composite quasiparticles called plasmarons, which strongly renormalize the dispersion and carry information of electron-electron coupling strength as defined by the effective fine structure constant $${\alpha }_ee^* $$. Although h-BN with unique dielectric properties has been widely used as an important substrate for graphene, so far there is no experimental report of plasmarons in graphene/h-BN yet. Here, we report direct experimental observation of plasmaron dispersion in graphene/h-BN heterostructures through angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements upon in situ electron doping. Characteristic diamond-shaped dispersion is observed near the Dirac cone in both 0° (aligned) and 13.5° (twisted) graphene/h-BN, and the electron-electron interaction strength $${\alpha }_ee^* $$ is extracted to be $${\alpha }_ee^* \approx 0.9\pm 0.1$$, highlighting the important role of electron-electron interaction. Our results suggest graphene/h-BN as an ideal platform for investigating strong electron-electron interaction with weak dielectric screening, and lays fundamental physics for gate-tunable nano-electronics and nano-plasmonics.