Interfacial Landau levels in bent graphene racetracks

Abstract

One-dimensional electronic states are critical to many fascinating phenomena in low dimensions. We show that a series of interfacial states can be induced by applying an in-plane bending to a graphene racetrack geometry, an effective superlattice consisting of multiple graphene and hexagonal boron nitride ($h\mathrm{BN}$) domains. These local states, robust against the detailed atomic configuration along interfaces, display a unique coupling of their energies and their spatial locations. This way, it is possible to identify such a state with certain energy by merely referring to its location, mimicking well the transverse magnetic focusing. Further, these local states are ballistically conducting with different group velocities, indicating that each interfacial transport channel has a unique electric conduction. These findings may have implications for the design of nanoelectronics with heterostructures.