Tuning a Two-Impurity Kondo System by a Moiré Superstructure

Abstract

Two-impurity Kondo models are paradigmatic for correlated spin-fermion systems. Working with Mn atoms on Au(111) covered by a monolayer of MoS2, we tune the interadatom exchange via the adatom distance and the adatom-substrate exchange via the location relative to a moiré structure of the substrate. Differential-conductance measurements on isolated adatoms exhibit Kondo peaks with heights depending on the adatom location relative to the moiré structure. Mn dimers spaced by a few atomic lattice sites exhibit split Kondo resonances. In contrast, adatoms in closely spaced dimers couple antiferromagnetically, resulting in a molecular-singlet ground state. Exciting the singlet-triplet transition by tunneling electrons, we find that the singlet-triplet splitting is surprisingly sensitive to the moiré structure. We interpret our results theoretically by relating the variations in the singlet-triplet splitting to the heights of the Kondo peaks of single adatoms, finding evidence for coupling of the adatom spin to multiple conduction electron channels.