Tunable electrical superlattices in periodically gated bilayer graphene

Abstract

The paper demonstrates that a single flake of bilayer graphene patterned with a periodic array of metallic gate electrodes behaves like a programmable superlattice formed by heterostructures of type I, II, or III, depending on the dc gate voltage values. The engineering of the width and position of the band gap in each region is performed only by tuning the dc voltages applied on the gate electrodes. Such a single programmable superlattice on bilayer graphene could replace the existing superlattices that require different semiconductor materials for each heterostructure type.