Intervalley Scattering, Long-Range Disorder, and Effective Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking in Graphene

Abstract

We discuss the effect of certain types of static disorder, like that induced by curvature or topological defects, on the quantum correction to the conductivity in graphene. We find that when the intervalley scattering time is long or comparable to tau(phi), these defects can induce an effective time-reversal symmetry breaking of the Hamiltonian associated to each one of the two valleys in graphene. The phenomenon suppresses the magnitude of the quantum correction to the conductivity and may result in the complete absence of a low-field magnetoresistance, as recently found experimentally. Our work shows that a quantitative description of weak localization in graphene must include the analysis of new regimes, not present in conventional two-dimensional electron gases.