Double trigonal warping and the anomalous quantum Hall step in bilayer graphene with Rashba spin–orbit coupling

Abstract

We demonstrate that the trigonal warping observed in bilayer graphene is doubled in the presence of Rashba spin–orbit (RSO) coupling, i.e. the Dirac points along the three-fold symmetry axis are doubled. There are now seven Dirac points. Furthermore, the RSO interaction breaks the electron–hole symmetry of the magnetic band structure. The most intriguing feature is that the step of the quantum Hall plateau at zero energy is four times that at finite energy. The number of Dirac points and the zero energy Hall step are only determined by the existence of RSO coupling, but are independent of the strength of the coupling. The robustness of these phenomena suggests equivalence between the RSO coupling and the topological effect in bilayer coupling.