RKKY interaction in graphene with a line defect.

A kind of extended line defect is currently an experimentally available one-dimensional topological structure in graphene lattice. It modifies the electronic properties of graphene in many aspects. For example, it induces an even-parity boundary state which has linear dispersion and breaks the electron-hole symmetry of the graphene electronic structure. In addition, the line defect possesses much stronger adsorption ability to the metal adatoms than the ordinary graphene lattice point. In the present work, by developing an analytical lattice Green's function technique, we theoretically study the RKKY interaction in graphene when two magnetic impurities are adsorbed near the line defect. We find that R(-3) decay rate of the RKKY interaction unique to graphene still holds true in the presence of the line defect. But another feature of the RKKY interaction in graphene, referred to as the Saremi's rule, which claims the RKKY interactions between the same or opposite sublattice points are ferro- or antiferromagnetic respectively, is no longer preserved due to the influence of the boundary state around the line defect. More importantly, the RKKY interaction on the line defect is greater than its counterpart in the pristine graphene by about one or two orders of magnitude. The local lattice distortion around the line defect can bring about the transition of the RKKY interaction between ferro- and antiferromagnetic orders. Such a result implies that the presence of the extended line defect provides a feasible platform in graphene to realize the long-range magnetic order even at a high temperature.