Quasiparticles In Graphene Research Articles

Klein Tunneling in Deformed Honeycomb Lattices

We study the scattering of waves off a potential step in deformed honeycomb lattices. For deformations below a critical value, perfect Klein tunneling is obtained; i.e., a potential step transmits waves at normal incidence with nonresonant unit-transmission probability. Beyond the critical deformation a gap forms in the spectrum, and a potential step perpendicular to the deformation direction reflects all normally incident waves, exhibiting a dramatic transition form unit transmission to total reflection. These phenomena are generic to honeycomb lattices and apply to electromagnetic waves in photonic lattices, quasiparticles in graphene, and cold atoms in optical lattices.

Observation of Carrier-Density-Dependent Many-Body Effects in Graphene via Tunneling Spectroscopy

We find the scanning tunneling spectra of backgated graphene monolayers to be significantly altered by many-body excitations. Experimental features in the spectra arising from electron-plasmon interactions show carrier density dependence, distinguishing them from density-independent electron-phonon features. Using a straightforward model, we are able to calculate theoretical tunneling spectra that agree well with our data, providing insight into the effects of many-body interactions on the lifetime of graphene quasiparticles.

Casimir interaction between a perfect conductor and graphene described by the Dirac model

We adopt the Dirac model for graphene and calculate the Casimir interaction energy between a plane suspended graphene sample and a parallel plane perfect conductor. This is done in two ways. First, we use the quantum-field-theory approach and evaluate the leading-order diagram in a theory with $2+1$-dimensional fermions interacting with $3+1$-dimensional photons. Next, we consider an effective theory for the electromagnetic field with matching conditions induced by quantum quasiparticles in graphene. The first approach turns out to be the leading order in the coupling constant of the second one. The Casimir interaction for this system appears to be rather weak. It exhibits a strong dependence on the mass of the quasiparticles in graphene.

Effect of Coulomb interactions on the optical properties of doped graphene

Recent optical conductivity experiments of doped graphene in the infrared regime reveal a strong background in the energy region between the intra and interband transitions difficult to explain within conventional pictures. We propose a phenomenological model taking into account the marginal Fermi liquid nature of the quasiparticles in graphene near the neutrality point that can explain qualitatively the observed features. We also study the electronic Raman signal and suggest that it will also be anomalous.

Dynamics of Weyl wave-packets in a noisy environment

We study the effect of coupling to an environment a particle whose dynamics is governed by the Weyl equation. This model describes chiral quasi-particles in graphene in the presence of noise. Using an exact mapping of the Hamiltonian onto a conditional spin–boson model we study the dynamics of wave-packets, and how the phenomena of spin-separation and Zitterbewegung survive in the presence of noise. We studied three limits of the problem, for which exact results can be derived, namely noise with arbitrary spectrum coupled parallel to the direction of motion, and for arbitrary orientation the limits of low frequency and white noise.

Contact and edge effects in graphene devices

Electrical transport studies on graphene have been focused mainly on the linear dispersion region around the Fermi level and, in particular, on the effects associated with the quasiparticles in graphene behaving as relativistic particles known as Dirac fermions. However, some theoretical work has suggested that several features of electron transport in graphene are better described by conventional semiconductor physics. Here we use scanning photocurrent microscopy to explore the impact of electrical contacts and sheet edges on charge transport through graphene devices. The photocurrent distribution reveals the presence of potential steps that act as transport barriers at the metal contacts. Modulations in the electrical potential within the graphene sheets are also observed. Moreover, we find that the transition from the p- to n-type regime induced by electrostatic gating does not occur homogeneously within the sheets. Instead, at low carrier densities we observe the formation of p-type conducting edges surrounding a central n-type channel.

Static structure factor for graphene in a magnetic field

A close study is made of the static structure factor for graphene in a magnetic field at integer filling factors $\ensuremath{\nu}$, with focus on revealing possible signatures of ``relativistic'' quantum field theory in the low-energy physics of graphene. It is pointed out, in particular, that for graphene even the vacuum state has a nonzero density spectral weight, which, together with the structure factor for all $\ensuremath{\nu}$, grows significantly with increasing wave vector; such unusual features of density correlations are a relativistic effect deriving from massless Dirac quasiparticles in graphene. Remarkably, it turns out that the zero-energy Landau levels of electrons or holes, characteristic to graphene, remain indistinguishable in density response from the vacuum state, although they are distinct in Hall conductance.

Magnetic barriers and confinement of Dirac–Weyl quasiparticles in graphene

We discuss the properties of the two-dimensional massless Dirac–Weyl quasiparticles realized in graphene monolayers in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic fields. We show that in contrast to electrostatic barriers, appropriate magnetic barriers are able to confine these quasiparticles. This allows for a novel way of designing mesoscopic structures (e.g., quantum dots, quantum point contacts) in graphene.

Robust Transport Properties in Graphene

Two-dimensional Dirac fermions are used to discuss quasiparticles in graphene in the presence of impurity scattering. Transport properties are completely dominated by diffusion. This may explain why recent experiments did not find weak localization in graphene. The diffusion coefficient of the quasiparticles decreases strongly with increasing strength of disorder. Using the Kubo formalism, however, we find a robust minimal conductivity that is independent of disorder. This is a consequence of the fact that the change of the diffusion coefficient is fully compensated by a change of the number of delocalized quasiparticle states.

Quasiparticle dynamics in graphene

The effectively massless, relativistic behaviour of graphene’s charge carriers—known as Dirac fermions—is a result of its unique electronic structure, characterized by conical valence and conduction bands that meet at a single point in momentum space (at the Dirac crossing energy). The study of many-body interactions amongst the charge carriers in graphene and related systems such as carbon nanotubes, fullerenes and graphite is of interest owing to their contribution to superconductivity and other exotic ground states in these systems. Here we show, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, that electron–plasmon coupling plays an unusually strong role in renormalizing the bands around the Dirac crossing energy—analogous to mass renormalization by electron–boson coupling in ordinary metals. Our results show that electron–electron, electron–plasmon and electron–phonon coupling must be considered on an equal footing in attempts to understand the dynamics of quasiparticles in graphene and related systems.

Unusual Microwave Response of Dirac Quasiparticles in Graphene

Recent experiments have proven that the quasiparticles in graphene obey a Dirac equation. Here we show that microwaves are an excellent probe of their unusual dynamics. When the chemical potential is small, the intraband response can exhibit a cusp around zero frequency Omega and this unusual line shape changes to Drude-like by increasing the chemical potential |mu|, with width linear in mu. The interband contribution at T=0 is a constant independent of Omega with a lower cutoff at 2mu. Distinctly different behavior occurs if interaction-induced phenomena in graphene cause an opening of a gap Delta. At a large magnetic field B, the diagonal and Hall conductivities at small Omega become independent of B but remain nonzero and show a structure associated with the lowest Landau level. This occurs because in the Dirac theory the energy of this level, E0 = +/-Delta, is field independent in sharp contrast to the conventional case.

Transport of Dirac quasiparticles in graphene: Hall and optical conductivities

The analytical expressions for both diagonal and off-diagonal ac and dc conductivities of graphene placed in an external magnetic field are derived. These conductivities exhibit rather unusual behavior as functions of frequency, chemical potential, and applied field which is caused by the fact that the quasiparticle excitations in graphene are Dirac-like. One of the most striking effects observed in graphene is the odd integer quantum Hall effect. We argue that it is caused by the anomalous properties of the Dirac quasiparticles from the lowest Landau level. Other quantities such as Hall angle and Nernst signal also exhibit rather unusual behavior, in particular when there is an excitonic gap in the spectrum of the Dirac quasiparticle excitations.