Quantum Hall effect in lightly hydrogenated graphene

Abstract

We have measured the quantum Hall effect in monolayer graphene samples that were exposed to a cold hydrogen plasma leading to a hydrogenation level of a few percent. Compared to pristine graphene, the Landau level distance significantly decreases in the hydrogenated structures, and its field dependence changes from square root type to linear. From this observation we conclude that the band structure in hydrogenated graphene changes from a linear Dirac-Weyl type dispersion to a quadratic one with an effective electron mass $m_e^* = 0.24~m_e$. This is in good agreement with ab-initio band structure calculations of hydrogen decorated graphene monolayer.