The electronic properties of a particular class of domain walls in gapped graphene are investigated. We show that they can support mid-gap states which are localized in the vicinity of the domain wall and propagate along its length. With a finite density of domain walls, these states can alter the electronic properties of gapped graphene significantly. If the mid-gap band is partially filled,the domain wall can behave like a one-dimensional metal embedded in a semi-conductor, and could potentially be used as a single-channel quantum wire.
We study the combined effect of a conical topological defect and a Coulomb charge impurity on the dynamics of Dirac fermions in gapped graphene. Beyond a certain strength of the Coulomb charge, quantum instability sets in, which demarcates the boundary between sub and supercritical values of the charge. In the subcritical regime, for certain values of the system parameters, the allowed boundary conditions in gapped graphene cone can be classified in terms of a single real parameter. We show that the observables such as local density of states, scattering phase shifts and the bound state spectr…
Recent observation of a metal-insulator phase transition in the $ν=0$ Hall state of graphene has inspired the idea that charge carriers in the metallic state could be fractionally charged vortices. We examine the question of whether vortices in particular gapped states of graphene and subject to external magnetic and pseudo-magnetic fields could have the mid-gap zero mode electron states which would allow them to be charged.
We report our theoretical calculations on the temperature and energy dependent electrical conductivity of gapped graphene within the framework of Boltzmann transport formalism. Since screening effects have known to be of vital importance in explaining the conductivity of gapless graphene therefore we first worked out the behaviour of the temperature dependent polarization function for gapped graphene as a function of wave vector and band gap, respectively. Polarization of gapped graphene has been compared with that of gapless graphene, bilayer graphene and 2DEG to see the effects of gap. It is…
In this study we report our numerical results on finite temperature non-interacting dynamical polarization function, plasmon modes and electron energy loss function of doped single layer gapped graphene within the random phase approximation. We find that the interplay of linear energy band dispersion, chirality, bandgap and temperature endow single layer gapped graphene with strange polarizability behaviour which is a mixture of 2DEG, single layer and bilayer graphene and as a result the plasmon spectrum also manifests strikingly peculiar behaviour. The plasmon dispersion is observed to be sup…
The second-order nonlinear optical susceptibility $Π^{(2)}$ for second harmonic generation is calculated for gapped graphene. The linear and second-order nonlinear plasmon excitations are investigated in context of second harmonic generation (SHG). We report a red shift and an order of magnitude enhancement of the SHG resonance with growing gap, or alternatively, reduced electro-chemical potential.
We use a self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation with realistic Coulomb interactions for $π$-band electrons to explore the possibility of broken symmetry states in weakly disordered ABC stacked trilayer graphene. The competition between gapped and gapless broken symmetry states, and normal states is studied by comparing total energies. We find that gapped states are favored and that, unlike the bilayer case, gapless nematic broken symmetry states are not metastable. Among the gapped states the layer antiferromagnetic state is favored over anomalous and spin Hall states.
We study theoretically the interaction of ultrashort optical pulses with gapped graphene. Such strong pulse results in finite conduction band population and corresponding electric current both during and after the pulse. Since gapped graphene has broken inversion symmetry, it has an axial symmetry about the $y$-axis but not about the $x$-axis. We show that, in this case, if the linear pulse is polarized along the $x$-axis, the rectified electric current is generated in the $y$ direction. At the same time, the conduction band population distribution in the reciprocal space is symmetric about th…
In this paper, we numerically study the bound electron states induced by long range Coulomb impurity in gapped graphene and the quasi-bound states in supercritical region based on the lattice model. We present a detailed comparison between our numerical simulations and the prediction of the continuum model which is described by the Dirac equation in (2+1)-dimensional Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). We also use the Fano's formalism to investigate the quasi-bound state development and design an accessible experiments to test the decay of the supercritical vacuum in the gapped graphene.
In this paper, the electronic band structures and its transport properties in the gapped graphene superlattices, with one-dimensional (1D) periodic potentials of square barriers, are systematically investigated. It is found that a zero averaged wave-number (zero-$\overline{k}$ ) gap is formed inside the gapped graphene-based superlattices, and the condition for obtaining such a zero-$\overline{k}$ gap is analytically presented. The properties of this zero-$\overline{k}$ gap including its transmission, conductance and Fano factor are studied in detail. Finally it is revealed that the properties…
We present a low-energy effective-mass theory to describe chiral orbital current and anomalous magnetic moment in graphenes with band gap and related materials. We show that a Bloch electron generally contains an anomalous current density due to inter-band matrix elements, which describes a chiral current circulation associated with magnetic moment. In gapped graphenes, the chiral current is opposite between different valleys, and corresponding magnetic moment accounts for valley splitting of Landau levels. In gapped bilayer graphene, in particular, the valley-dependent magnetic moment is resp…
Numerical and closed-form analytic expressions for plasmon dispersion relations and rates of dissipation are first obtained at finite-temperatures for free-standing gapped graphene. These closed-system results are generalized to an open system with Coulomb coupling of graphene electrons to an external electron reservoir. New plasmon modes, as well as new plasmon dissipation channels, are found in this open system, including significant modifications arising from the combined effect of thermal excitation of electrons and an energy bandgap in gapped graphene. Moreover, the characteristics of the…
In this work, we present numerical results for the second and third order conductivities of the plain graphene and gapped graphene monolayers associated with the second and third harmonic generation, the optical rectification and the optical Kerr effect. The frequencies considered here range from the microwave to the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, the latter end of which had not yet been studied. These calculations are performed in the velocity gauge and directly address the components of the conductivity tensor. In the velocity gauge, the radiation field is represented by a power series…
In the current work we have investigated the influence of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling on spin-current of a single layer gapped graphene. It was shown that the Rashba coupling has a considerable role in generation of the spin-current of vertical spins in mono-layer graphene. The behavior of the spin-current is determined by density of impurities. It was also shown that the spin-current of the system could increase by increasing the Rashba coupling strength and band-gap of the graphene and the sign of the spin-current could be controlled by the direction of the current-driving electric field.
We study a gapped graphene monolayer in a combination of uniform magnetic field and strain-induced uniform pseudomagnetic field. The presence of two fields completely removes the valley degeneracy. The resulting density of states shows a complicated behaviour that can be tuned by adjusting the strength of the fields. We analyze how these features can be observed in the sublattice, valley and full density of states. The analytical expression for the valley DOS is derived.
We investigate the strain effect on the Goos-Hänchen (GH) shifts and group delay time for transmitted Dirac fermions in gapped graphene through a single barrier potential. The solutions of energy spectrum are used to compute the transmission probabilities together with the GH shifts and group delay time. Our results show that the two last quantities are strongly depending to weather the strain is applied along armchair or zigzag directions. In particular it found that both of quantities can be enhanced with the applied strain.
Friedel oscillation is a well-known wave phenomenon, which represents the oscillatory response of electron waves to imperfection. By utilizing the pseudospin-momentum locking in gapless graphene, two recent experiments demonstrate the measurement of the topological Berry phase by corresponding to the unique number of wavefront dislocations in Friedel oscillations. Here, we study the Friedel oscillations in gapped graphene, in which the pseudospin-momentum locking is broken. Unusually, the wavefront dislocations do occur as that in gapless graphene, which expects the immediate verification in t…
We model the quantum Hall effect in heterostructures made of two gapped graphene stripes with different gaps, $Δ_1$ and $Δ_2$. We consider two main situations, $Δ_1=0,Δ_2\neq0$ and $Δ_1=-Δ_2$. They are different in a fundamental aspect: only the latter feature kink states that, when intervalley coupling is absent, are protected against backscattering. We compute the two terminal conductance of heterostructures with channel length up to 430 nm, in two transport configurations, parallel and perpendicular to the interface. By studying the effect of disorder on the transport along the boundary, we…
In the model of gapped graphene, we have shown how the recently predicted topological resonances are solely related to the presence of an energy band gap at the $K$ and $K^\prime$ points of the Brillouin zone. In the field of a strong single-oscillation chiral (circularly-polarized) optical pulse, the topological resonance causes the valley-selective population of the conduction band. This population distribution represents a chiral texture in the reciprocal space that is structured with respect to the pulse separatrix as has earlier been predicted for transition metal dichalcogenides. As the …
For gapped graphene, we predict that an intense ultrashort (single-oscillation) circularly-polarized optical pulse can induce a large population of the conduction band and a large valley polarization. With an increase in the bandgap, the magnitude of the valley polarization gradually increases from zero (for the native gapless graphene) to a value on the order of unity. The energy bandwidth of the electrons excited into the conduction band can be very large ($\gtrsim 10$ eV for a reasonable pulse amplitude of $\sim 0.5$ $\mathrm{V/Å}$). These phenomena are due to the effect of topological reso…
We study the effect of uniaxial strain on the electronic band structure of gapped graphene. We consider two types of gapped graphene, one which breaks the symmetry between the two triangular sublattices (staggered model), and another which alternates the bonds on the honeycomb lattice (Kekulé model). In the staggered model, the effect of strains below a critical value is only a shift of the band gap location. In the Kekulé model, as strain is increased, band gap location is initially pinned to a corner of the Brillouin zone while its width diminishes, and after gap closure the location of the …
We investigate the Goos-Hänchen shift for ballistic electrons (i) reflected from a step-like inhomogeneity of the potential energy and (or) effective mass, and (ii) transmitted through a ferromagnetic barrier region in monolayer silicene or gapped graphene. For the electrons reflected from a single interface we found that the Goos-Hänchen shift is valley-polarized for gapped graphene structure, and valley- and spin-polarized for silicene due to the spin-valley coupling. Incontrast, for example, to gapless graphene the lateral beam shift in gapped structures occurs not only in the case of total…
We study the problem of Coulomb field-induced charging of the ground state in a system of 2D massive Dirac particles (gapped graphene). As in its 3D QED counterpart, the critical Coulomb coupling is renormalized to higher values, compared to the massless case. We find that in gapped graphene a novel supercritical regime is possible, where the screening charge is comparable to the impurity charge, thus leading to suppression of the Coulomb field at nanometer scales. We corroborate this with numerical solution of the tight-binding problem in the honeycomb lattice.
We formulate and solve the perhaps simplest two-body bound state problem for interacting Dirac fermions in two spatial dimensions. A two-body bound state is predicted for gapped graphene monolayers in the presence of weakly repulsive electron-electron interactions and a Coulomb impurity with charge $Ze>0$, where the most interesting case corresponds to $Z=1$. We introduce a variational Chandrasekhar-Dirac spinor wave function and show the existence of at least one bound state. This state leaves clear signatures accessible by scanning tunneling microscopy. One may thereby obtain direct informat…
We investigate the unusual features of the quantum transport in gapped monolayer graphene, which is in a pseudospin symmetry-broken state with a net perpendicular pseudomagnetization. Using these pseudoferromagnets (PFs), we propose a perfect pseudospin valve effect that can be used for realizing pseudospintronics in monolayer graphene. The peculiarity of the associated effects of pseudo spin injection and pseudo spin accumulation are also studied. We further demonstrate the determining effect of the sublattice pseudospin degree of freedom on Andreev reflection and the associated proximity eff…
We predict the formation and superfluidity of polaritons in an optical microcavity formed by excitons in gapped graphene embedded there and microcavity photons. The Rabi splitting related to the creation of an exciton in a graphene layer in the presence of the band gap is obtained. The analysis of collective excitations as well as the sound velocity is presented. We show that the superfluid density and temperature of the Kosterlitz-Thouless phase transition are decreasing functions of the energy gap.
We study theoretically the strong-field absorption of an ultrafast optical pulse by a gapped graphene monolayer. At low field amplitudes, the absorbance in the pristine graphene is equal to the universal value of $2.3$ percent. Although the ultrafast optical absorption for low field amplitudes is independent of the polarization, linear or circular, of the applied optical pulse, for high field amplitudes, the absorption strongly depends on the pulse polarization. For a linearly polarized pulse, the optical absorbance is saturated at the value of $\approx 1.4$ percent for the pulse's amplitude o…
Using the microscopic nonlinear quantum theory of interaction of strong coherent electromagnetic radiation with a gapped bilayer graphene is developed for high harmonic generation at low-energy photon excitation-induced Lifshitz transitions. The Liouville-von Neumann equation for the density matrix is solved numerically at the nonadiabatic multiphoton excitation regime. By numerical solutions, we examine the rates of the second and third harmonics generation at the particle-hole annihilation in induced Lifshitz transitions by the two linearly polarized coherent electromagnetic waves propagatin…
We study the effect of band gap on the ground-state properties of Dirac electrons in a doped graphene within the random phase approximation at zero temperature. Band gap dependence of the exchange, correlation and ground-state energies and the compressibility are calculated. We additionally show that the conductance in the gapped graphene is smaller than gapless one. We also calculate the band gap dependence of charge compressibility and it decreases with increasing the band gap values.
Microscopic nonlinear quantum theory of interaction of coherent electromagnetic radiation with gapped bilayer graphene is developed. The Liouville-von Neumann equation for the density matrix is solved numerically at the multiphoton excitation regime. The developed theory of interaction of charged carriers with strong driving wave field is valid near the Dirac points of the Brillouin zone. We consider the harmonic generation process in the nonadiabatic regime of interaction when the Keldysh parameter is of the order of unity. On the basis of numerical solutions, we examine the rates of odd and …
Recent experiments have revealed that novel nonequilibrium states consistent with the hydrodynamic description of electrons are realized in ultrapure graphene, which hosts the valley degrees of freedom. Here, we formulate a theory of electron hydrodynamics including dissipation processes of the valley angular momentum by employing the concept of micropolar fluids. As a result, our theory proposes a novel strategy to generate a valley polarization by the microrotation. We uncover that the rotational viscosity induces longitudinal valley currents which are second order in electric fields.
Based on the tight-binding model calculations and photonic experimental visualization on graphene, we report the domain-wall-induced gapped topological kink states and topological corner states. In graphene, domain walls with gapless topological kink states could be induced either by sublattice symmetry breaking or by lattice deformation. We find that the coexistence of these two mechanisms will induce domain walls with gapped topological kink states. Significantly, the intersection of these two types of domain wall gives rise to topological corner state localized at the crossing point. Throug…
We calculate the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation time and the Knight shift for the case of gapped graphene systems. Our calculations consider both the massive and massless gap scenarios. Both the spin-lattice relaxation time and the Knight shift depend on temperature, chemical potential, and the value of the electronic energy gap. In particular, at the Dirac point, the electronic energy gap has stronger effects on the system nuclear magnetic resonance parameters in the case of the massless gap scenario. Differently, at large values of the chemical potential, both gap scenarios behave in a simi…
We propose a scheme to trap and filter electrons, valley dependently, on a scale beyond the diffraction limit, in a gapped Dirac system using a circularly polarized light beam and a microscale metallic resonator. The main mechanism allowing the selection is the valley dependent break of the time reversal symmetry. Indeed in one valley, the light partially closes the already existing gap while it opens it in the other one. This difference in the band structure close to the Dirac points, induces a change in the dynamics of the electrons, leading to a valley router behaviour of the system.
We study the static and dynamic screening of gapped bilayer graphene. Unlike previous works we use the 4-band model instead of the simplified 2-band model. We find that there are important qualitative differences between the dielectric screening function obtained using the 2-band and that obtained using the 4-band model. In particular within the 4-band model in the presence of a band-gap the static screening exhibits Kohn anomalies that are absent within the 2-band model. Moreover, using the 4-band model, we are able to examine the effect of trigonal warping (absent in the 2-band model) on the…
We present a theoretical study of gap opening in the zeroth Landau level in gapped graphene as a result of pseudo-Zeeman interaction. The applied magnetic field couples with the valley pseudospin degree of freedom of the charge carriers leading to the pseudo-Zeeman interaction. To investigate its role in transport at the Charge Neutrality Point (CNP), we study the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) in gapped graphene in an angular magnetic field in the presence of pseudo-Zeeman interaction. Analytical expressions are derived for the Hall conductivity using Kubo-Greenwood formula. We also determ…
This is a theoretical study of electron transport in gated bilayer graphene - a novel semiconducting material with a tunable band gap. It is shown that the which-layer pseudospin coherence enhances the subgap conductivity and facilitates the thermally activated transport. The mechanism proposed can also lead to the non-monotonic conductivity vs. temperature dependence at a band gap size of the order of 10 meV. The effect can be observed in gapped bilayer graphene sandwiched in boron nitride where the electron-hole puddles and flexural phonons are strongly suppressed.
We study Dirac fermions in gapped graphene that are subjected to a magnetic field and a potential barrier harmonically oscillating in time. The tunneling modes inside the gap and the associated Goos-Hänchen (GH) shifts are analytically investigated. We show that the GH shifts in transmission for the central band and the first two sidebands change sign at the Dirac points $ε+l\hbar\tildeω$ $(l=0,\pm 1)$. We also find that the GH shifts can be either negative or positive and becomes zero at transmission resonances.
We show that the spectrum of subbands in an electrostatically defined quantum wire in gapped bilayer graphene directly manifests the minivalley structure and reflects Berry curvature via the associated magnetic moment of the states in the low-energy bands of this two-dimensional material. We demonstrate how these appear in degeneracies of the low-energy minibands and their valley splitting, which develops linearly in a weak magnetic field. Consequently, magneto-conductance of a ballistic point contact connecting two non-gapped areas of a bilayer through a gapped (top and bottom gated) barrier …
We present a formulation for the nonlinear optical response in gapped graphene, where the low-energy single-particle spectrum is modeled by massive Dirac theory. As a representative example of the formulation presented here, we obtain closed form formula for the third harmonic generation (THG) in gapped graphene. It turns out that the covariant form of the low-energy theory gives rise to a peculiar logarithmic singularities in the nonlinear optical spectra. The universal functional dependence of the response function on dimension-less quantities indicates that the optical nonlinearity can be l…
The rise of graphene opens a new door to qubit implementation, as discussed in the recent proposal of valley pair qubits in double quantum dots of gapped graphene (Wu et al., arXiv: 1104.0443 [cond-mat.mes-hall]). The work here presents the comprehensive theory underlying the proposal. It discusses the interaction of electrons with external magnetic and electric fields in such structures. Specifically, it examines a strong, unique mechanism, i.e., the analogue of the 1st-order relativistic effect in gapped graphene. This mechanism is state mixing free and allows, together with the electrically…
We theoretically demonstrate unusual features of superconducting proximity effect in gapped graphene which presents a pseudospin symmetry-broken ferromagnet with a net pseudomagnetization. We find that the presence of a band gap makes the Andreev conductance of graphene superconductor/pseudoferromagnet (S/PF) junction to behave similar to that of a graphene ferromagnet-superconductor junction. The energy gap $Δ_N$ enhance the pseudospin inverted Andreev conductance of S/PF junction to reach a limiting maximum value for $Δ_N\gg μ$, which depending on the bias voltage can be larger than the valu…
We present analytical expressions for the current-current correlation function in graphene for arbitrary frequency, wave vector, doping, and band gap induced by a mass term. In the static limit we analyze the Landau (orbital) and Pauli magnetization, as well as the Lindhard correction which describes Friedel and RKKY oscillations. In the nonrelativistic limit we compare our results with the situation of the usual two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). We find that the orbital magnetic susceptibility (OMS) in gapped graphene is smeared out on an energy scale given by the inverse mass. The nonrela…
An energy gap can be opened in the electronic spectrum of graphene by lifting its sublattice symmetry. In bilayers, it is possible to open gaps as large as 0.2 eV. However, these gaps rarely lead to a highly insulating state expected for such semiconductors at low temperatures. This long-standing puzzle is usually explained by charge inhomogeneity. Here we investigate spatial distributions of proximity-induced superconducting currents in gapped graphene and, also, compare measurements in the Hall bar and Corbino geometries in the normal state. By gradually opening the gap in bilayer graphene, …
When a gap of tunable size opens at the conic band intersections of graphene, the Berry phase does not vanish abruptly, but progressively decreases as the gap increases. The phase depends on the reciprocal-space path radius, i.e., for a doped system, the Fermi wave vector. The phase and its observable consequences can thus be tuned continuously via gap opening --by a modulating potential induced by strain, epitaxy, or nanostructuration-- and doping adjustment.
We consider the interaction of gapped graphene in the two-band approximation using an explicit time-dependent approach. In addition to the full high-order harmonic generation (HHG) spectrum, we also obtain the perturbative harmonic response using the time-dependent method at photon energies covering all the significant features in the responses. The transition from the perturbative to the fully non-perturbative regime of HHG at these photon energies is studied in detail.
In our previous work (E. Kogan, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 84}, 115119 (2011)) we calculated RKKY interaction between two magnetic impurities in pristine graphene using the Green's functions (GF) in the coordinate -- imaginary time representation. Now we show that the calculations of the GF in this representation can be simplified by using the Feynman's trick, which allows to easily calculate RKKY interaction in gapped graphene. We also present calculations of the RKKY interaction in gapped or doped graphene using the coordinate -- imaginary frequency representation. Both representations, corresponding…
Graphene, as an atomic-thick ultrasoft membrane, almost has no resistance against out-of-plane deformations and, therefore, it is always wrinkled to a certain degree. Recently, corrugated structures and their effects on the electronic properties of monolayer graphene have been studied extensively. However, similar experimental studies in bilayer graphene have yet to be reported. Here, we show that corrugations in bilayer graphene can generate incommensurate stacking solitons (domain walls) between commensurate Bernal-stacked domains. By using scanning tunneling microscopy, we microscopically s…
Numerically solving the semiconductor Bloch equations within a phenomenological relaxation time approximation, we extract both the linear and nonlinear optical conductivities of doped graphene and gapped graphene under excitation by a laser pulse. We discuss in detail the dependence of second harmonic generation, third harmonic generation, and the Kerr effects on the doping level, the gap, and the electric field amplitude. The numerical results for weak electric fields agree with those calculated from available analytic perturbation formulas. For strong electric fields when saturation effects …
We consider the anomalous thermoelectric transport in gapped single and bilayer graphene where the gap may be due to broken inversion symmetry. In the presence of the gap, non-trivial Berry phase effects can be shown to mediate a transverse thermoelectric voltage in response to an applied temperature gradient even in the absence of a perpendicular magnetic field. This spontaneous, anomalous Nernst effect is nonzero for non-uniform chemical potential in the two inequivalent valleys in the graphene band structure. Conversely, the Nernst response can be used to create a valley-index polarization …
We obtain a novel bound state spectrum of the low energy excitations near the Fermi points of graphene in the presence of a charge impurity. The effects of possible short range interactions induced by the impurity are modelled by suitable boundary conditions. The spectrum in the subcritical region of the effective Coulomb coupling is labelled by a parameter which characterizes the boundary conditions and determines the inequivalent quantizations of the system. In the supercritical region we obtain a renormalization group flow for the effective Coulomb coupling.
We study the propagation of electrons in a circular quantum dot of gapped graphene subject to the magnetic flux $ϕ$. We present analytical expressions for the eigenstates, scattering coefficients, scattering efficiency and radial component of the reflected current. We identify different scattering regimes as a function of the physical parameters such as the incident electronic energy, potential barrier, radius of quantum dot, gap and $ϕ$. We choose two values of the flux $ϕ=1/2, 3/2$ and show that for low energy of the incident electron, the scattering resonances appear and the far-field scatt…
We have utilized the finite-difference approach to explore electron-tunneling properties in gapped graphene through various electrostatic-potential barriers changing from Gaussian to a triangular envelope function in comparison with a square potential barrier. Transmission coefficient is calculated numerically for each case and applied to corresponding tunneling conductance. It is well known that Klein tunneling in graphene will be greatly reduced in a gapped graphene. Our results further demonstrate that such a decrease of transmission can be significantly enhanced for spatially-modulated pot…
We study edge-states in graphene systems where a bulk energy gap is opened by inversion symmetry breaking. We find that the edge-bands dispersion can be controlled by potentials applied on the boundary with unit cell length scale. Under certain boundary potentials, gapless edge-states with valley-dependent velocity are found, exactly analogous to the spin-dependent gapless chiral edge-states in quantum spin Hall systems. The connection of the edge-states to bulk topological properties is revealed.
The optical properties of dielectric plates coated with gapped graphene are investigated on the basis of first principles of quantum electrodynamics. The reflection coefficients and reflectivities of graphene-coated plates are expressed in terms of the polarization tensor of gapped graphene and the dielectric permittivity of plate material. Simple approximate expressions for the required combinations of components of the polarization tensor applicable in the wide frequency region, where the presence of a gap influences the optical properties, are found. Numerical computations of the reflectivi…
