The instanton approach to the in-gap fluctuation states is applied to the spectrum of biased bilayer graphene. It is shown that the density of states falls off with energy measured from the band-edge as $ν(ε)\propto \exp(-|ε/ε_t|^{3/2})$, where the characteristic tail energy, $ε_t$, scales with the concentration of impurities, $n_i$, as $n_i^{2/3}$. While the bare energy spectrum is characterized by two energies: the bias-induced gap, $V$, and interlayer tunneling, $t_{\perp}$, the tail, $ε_t$, contains a {\it single} combination $V^{1/3}t_{\perp}^{2/3}$. We show that the above expression for $ν(ε)$ in the tail actually applies all the way down to the mid-gap.
Bilayer Heisenberg ferromagnetic insulators hold degenerate terahertz Dirac magnon modes associated with two opposite valleys of the hexagonal Brillouin zone. We show that this energy degeneracy can be removed by breaking of the inversion symmetry (I), leading to a topological magnon valley current. We show furthermore that this current leads to valley Seebeck effect for magnons and is thereby detectable. We perform calculations in the specific example of bilayer CrBr3, where I can be broken by electrostatic doping.
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 …
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…
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 …
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…
Despite the now vast body of two-dimensional materials under study, bilayer graphene remains unique in two ways: it hosts a simultaneously tunable band gap and electron density; and stems from simple fabrication methods. These two advantages underscore why bilayer graphene is critical as a material for optoelectronic applications. In the work that follows, we calculate the one- and two-photon absorption coefficients for degenerate interband absorption in a graphene bilayer hosting an asymmetry gap and adjustable chemical potential--all at finite temperature. Our analysis is comprehensive, char…
Bilayer graphene bears an eight-fold degeneracy due to spin, valley and layer symmetry, allowing for a wealth of broken symmetry states induced by magnetic or electric fields, by strain, or even spontaneously by interaction. We study the electrical transport in clean current annealed suspended bilayer graphene. We find two kind of devices. In bilayers of type B1 the eight-fold zero-energy Landau level (LL) is partially lifted above a threshold field revealing an insulating nu=0 quantum Hall state at the charge neutrality point (CNP). In bilayers of type B2 the LL lifting is full and a gap appe…
Topological domain walls in dual-gated gapped bilayer graphene host edge states that are gate- tunable and valley polarized. Here we predict that plasmonic collective modes can propagate along these topological domain walls even at zero bulk density, and possess a markedly different character from that of bulk plasmons. Strikingly, domain wall plasmons are extremely long-lived, with plasmon lifetimes that can be orders of magnitude larger than the transport scattering time in the bulk. While most pronounced at low temperatures, long domain wall plasmon lifetimes persist even at room temperatur…
AA-stacked bilayer graphene supports Fermi circles in its bonding and antibonding bands which coincide exactly, leading to symmetry-breaking in the presence of electron-electron interactions. We analyze a continuum model of this system in the Hartree-Fock approximation, using a self-consistently screened interaction that accounts for the gap in the spectrum in the broken symmetry state. The order parameter in the groundstate is shown to be of the Ising type, involving transfer of charge between the layers in opposite directions for different sublattices. We analyze the Ising phase transition f…
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.
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…
We show nonlinear transport experiments on clean, suspended bilayer graphene that reveal a gap in the density of states. Looking at the evolution of the gap in magnetic fields of different orientation, we find that the groundstate is a spin-ordered phase. Of the three possible gapped groundstates that are predicted by theory for equal charge distribution between the layers, we can therefore exclude the quantum anomalous Hall phase, leaving the layer antiferromagnet and the quantum spin Hall phase as the only possible gapped groundstates for bilayer graphene.
We report the experimental observation of Fabry-Pérot (FP) interference in the conductance of a gate-defined cavity in a dual-gated bilayer graphene (BLG) device. The high quality of the BLG flake, combined with the device's electrical robustness provided by the encapsulation between two hexagonal boron nitride layers, allows us to observe ballistic phase-coherent transport through a $1$μm-long cavity. We confirm the origin of the observed interference pattern by comparing to tight-binding calculations accounting for the gate-tunable bandgap. The good agreement between experiment and theory, f…
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 …
Bilayer graphene contains, compared to graphene monolayer, an additional graphene sheet and, therefore, extra degrees of freedom, making it a unique system for complex electronic states to emerge. Here, we show that there are two types of domain walls, i.e., coupling domain wall and potential domain wall, in gapped graphene bilayers, which make microscopic electronic properties of the bilayers varying spatially. The coupling domain wall separates two graphene bilayer regions with different interlayer coupling strengths and the potential domain wall is a boundary separating two adjacent regions…
Berry curvature is analogous to magnetic field but in momentum space and is commonly present in materials with non-trivial quantum geometry. It endows Bloch electrons with transverse anomalous velocities to produce Hall-like currents even in the absence of a magnetic field. We report the direct observation of in situ tunable valley-selective Hall effect (VSHE), where inversion symmetry, and thus the geometric phase of electrons, is controllable by an out-of-plane electric field. We use high-quality bilayer graphene with an intrinsic and tunable bandgap, illuminated by circularly polarized mid-…
We investigate transport properties through a rectangular potential barrier in AB-stacked bilayer graphene (AB-BLG) gapped by dielectric layers. Using the Dirac-like Hamiltonian with a transfer matrix approach we obtain transmission and reflection probabilities as well as the associated conductance. For two-band model and at normal incidence, we find extra resonances appearing in transmission compared to biased AB-BLG, which are Fabry-Pérot resonance type. Now by taking into account the inter-layer bias, we show that both of transmission and anti-Klein tunneling are diminished. Regarding four …
We employ a dual-gated geometry to control the band gap Δin bilayer graphene and study the temperature dependence of the resistance at the charge neutrality point, RNP(T), from 220 to 1.5 K. Above 5 K, RNP(T) is dominated by two thermally activated processes in different temperature regimes and exhibits exp(T3/T)^{1/3} below 5 K. We develop a simple model to account for the experimental observations, which highlights the crucial role of localized states produced by potential fluctuations. The high temperature conduction is attributed to thermal activation to the mobility edge. The activation e…
Bilayer graphene is normally a semimetal with parabolic dispersion, but a tunable bandgap up to few hundreds meV can be opened by breaking the symmetry between the layers through an external potential. Ab-initio calculations show that the optical response around the bandgap is strongly dominated by bound excitons, whose characteristics and selection rules differ from the usual excitons found in semiconductor quantum wells. In this work we study the physics of those excitons resonantly coupled to a photonic microcavity, assessing the possibility to reach the strong and the ultrastrong coupling …
We demonstrate that for gapped bilayer graphene, the nonlinear nature of the screening of an external disorder potential and the resulting inhomogeneity of the electron liquid are crucial for describing the electronic compressibility. In particular, traditional diagrammatic methods of many-body theory do not include this inhomogeneity and therefore fail to reproduce experimental data accurately, particularly at low carrier densities. In contrast, a direct calculation of the charge landscape via a numerical Thomas-Fermi energy functional method along with the appropriate bulk averaging procedur…
Electron binding by charge disorder surrounding gapped bilayer graphene
National Graphene Institute, University of Manchester（国家石墨烯研究所，曼彻斯特大学）；Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Manchester（曼彻斯特大学物理与天文系）；Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg（雷根斯堡大学理论物理研究所）；Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University（东北大学电气通信研究所）
We show that in gapped bilayer graphene, quasiparticle tunneling and the corresponding Berry phase can be controlled such that it exhibits features of single layer graphene such as Klein tunneling. The Berry phase is detected by a high-quality Fabry-Pérot interferometer based on bilayer graphene. By raising the Fermi energy of the charge carriers, we find that the Berry phase can be continuously tuned from $2π$ down to $0.68π$ in gapped bilayer graphene, in contrast to the constant Berry phase of $2π$ in pristine bilayer graphene. Particularly, we observe a Berry phase of $π$, the standard val…
While single-layer graphene shows extraordinary phenomena which are stable against electronic interactions, the non-interacting state of bilayer graphene is unstable to infinitesimal interactions leading to one of many possible exotic states. Indeed a gapped state is found in experiments but none of the states proposed so far can provide full accounts of its properties. Here we show that a magnetoelectric (ME) state is consistent with the experimental observations. This state breaks time-reversal symmetry through a pair of spontaneously generated current loops in each layer, and has odd-parity…
Application of a perpendicular electric field induces a band gap in bilayer graphene, and it also creates a "Mexican hat" structure in the dispersion relation. This structure has unusual implications for the hydrogen-like bound state of an electron to a Coulomb impurity. We calculate the ground state energy of this hydrogen-like state as a function of the applied interlayer voltage and the effective fine structure constant. Unlike in the normal hydrogen atom, the resulting wavefunction has many nodes even in the ground state. Further, the electron state undergoes "atomic collapse" into the Dir…
Unlike in conventional semiconductors, both the chemical potential and the band gap in bilayer graphene (BLG) can be tuned via application of external electric field. Among numerous device implications, this property also designates BLG as a candidate for high-performance thermoelectric material. In this theoretical study we have calculated the Seebeck coefficients for abrupt interface separating weakly- and heavily-doped areas in BLG, and for a more realistic rectangular sample of mesoscopic size, contacted by two electrodes. For a given band gap ($Δ$) and temperature ($T$) the maximal Seebec…
The inhomogenous real-space electronic structure of gapless and gapped disordered bilayer graphene is calculated in the presence of quenched charge impurities. For gapped bilayer graphene we find that for current experimental conditions the amplitude of the fluctuations of the screened disorder potential is of the order of (or often larger than) the intrinsic gap $Δ$ induced by the application of a perpendicular electric field. We calculate the crossover chemical potential, $Δ_{\rm cr}$, separating the insulating regime from a percolative regime in which less than half of the area of the bilay…
In minimally twisted bilayer graphene, a moir{é} pattern consisting of AB and BA stacking regions separated by domain walls forms. These domain walls are predicted to support counterpropogating topologically protected helical (TPH) edge states when the AB and BA regions are gapped. We fabricate designer moir{é} crystals with wavelengths longer than 50 nm and demonstrate the emergence of TPH states on the domain wall network by scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements. We observe a double-line profile of the TPH states on the domain walls, only occurring when the AB and BA regions are gappe…
The conductance through single-layer graphene (SLG) and AA/AB-stacked bilayer graphene (BLG) junctions is obtained by taking into account band gap and bias voltage terms. First, we consider gapped SLG, while in between, they are connected into pristine BLG. For Fermi energy larger than the interlayer hopping, the conductance as a function of the bilayer region length $d$ reveals two different models of anti-resonances with the same period. As a function of the band gap, with AA-BLG stacking, the results show that the conductance has the same minima whatever the value of $d$, and for AB-BLG, $d…
Electronic states at domain walls in bilayer graphene are studied by analyzing their four and two band continuum models, by performing numerical calculations on the lattice, and by using quantum geometric arguments. The continuum theories explain the distinct electronic properties of boundary modes localized near domain walls formed by interlayer electric field reversal, by interlayer stacking reversal, and by simultaneous reversal of both quantities. Boundary mode properties are related to topological transitions and gap closures which occur in the bulk Hamiltonian parameter space. The import…
We use a perturbative renormalization group approach with short-range continuum model interactions to analyze the competition between isotropic gapped and anisotropic gapless ordered states in bilayer graphene, commenting specifically on the role of exchange and on the importance of spin and valley flavor degeneracy. By comparing the divergences of the corresponding susceptibilities, we conclude that this approach predicts gapped states for flavor numbers N=1,2,4. We also comment briefly on the related gapped states expected in chiral (ABC) trilayer graphene.
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.
Superfluidity has recently been reported in double electron-hole bilayer graphene. The multiband nature of the bilayers is important because of the very small band gaps between conduction and valence bands. The long range nature of the superfluid pairing interaction means that screening must be fully taken into account. We have carried out a systematic mean-field investigation that includes (i) contributions to screening from both intraband and interband excitations, (ii) the low-energy band structure of bilayer graphene with its small band gap and flattened Mexican hat-like low-energy bands, …
We here classify of all the fully gapped \emph{massive} and \emph{gapless} phases in bilayer graphene. The effective low energy theory in bilayer graphene is constructed, and various discrete and continuous symmetries of the non-interacting system is analyzed. Spinless fermions, placed in a quantizing magnetic field is considered. The quantum anomalous Hall insulator is properly defined. Constructing a particle-hole doubled 16 component Nambu-Dirac spinor, we recognize all the possible fully gapped, and the gapless states, which, on the other hand, split the parabolic dispersion into two aniso…
The combination of field tunable bandgap, topological edge states, and valleys in the band structure, makes insulating bilayer graphene a unique localized system, where the scaling laws of dimensionless conductance g remain largely unexplored. Here we show that the relative fluctuations in ln g with the varying chemical potential, in strongly insulating bilayer graphene (BLG) decay nearly logarithmically for channel length up to L/$ξ$ ${\approx}$ 20, where $ξ$ is the localization length. This 'marginal' self averaging, and the corresponding dependence of <ln g> on L, suggest that transport in …
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, …
We propose use of disorder to produce a field effect transistor (FET) in biased bilayer and trilayer graphene. Modulation of the bias voltage can produce large variations in the conductance when the disorder's effects are confined to only one of the graphene layers. This effect is based on the bias voltage's ability to select which of the graphene layers carries current, and is not tied to the presence of a gap in the density of states. In particular, we demonstrate this effect in models of gapless ABA-stacked trilayer graphene, gapped ABC-stacked trilayer graphene, and gapped bilayer graphene…
Charge neutral bilayer graphene has a gapped ground state as transport experiments demonstrate. One of the plausible such ground states is layered antiferromagnetic spin density wave (LAF) state, where the spins in top and bottom layers have same magnitude with opposite directions. We propose that lightly charged bilayer graphene in an electric field perpendicular to the graphene plane may be a half metal as a consequence of the inversion and particle-hole symmetry broken in the LAF state. We show this explicitly by using a mean field theory on a 2-layer Hubbard model for the bilayer graphene.
We propose a spectroscopic method of identifying broken symmetry states of bilayer graphene. We demonstrate theoretically that, in contrast to gapped states, a strained bilayer crystal or nematic phase of the electronic liquid are distinguishable by the dependence of the lineshape of absorption on the polarization of the light. This property is characteristic for both the infrared and far-infrared spectral ranges, which correspond to the absorption by transitions between low-energy bands and split bands, and transitions between the low-energy valence and conduction bands, respectively.
Fano and hybrid resonances of bilayer graphene could be attractive for thermoelectric devices. The special profile presented by such resonances could significantly enhance the Seebeck coefficient and the power factor. In this work, we study the thermoelectric properties of bilayer graphene single and double barrier structures. The charge carriers are described as massive chiral particles through an effective Dirac-like Hamiltonian. The Hybrid matrix method, the Landauer-Büttiker formalism and the Cutler-Mott formula are implemented to obtain the transmission, transport and thermoelectric prope…
We propose a device for the generation of valley polarized electronic current in bilayer graphene. By analyzing the response of this material to intense terahertz frequency light in the presence of a transverse electric field, we demonstrate that dynamical states are induced in the gapped energy region, and if the system parameters are properly tuned, these states exist only in one valley. The valley polarized states can then be used to filter an arbitrary electron current, so generating a valley polarized current.
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…
The photovoltaic and bolometric photoresponse in gapped bilayer graphene was investigated by optical and transport measurements. A pulse coincidence technique at 1.5 um was used to measure the response times as a function of temperature. The bolometric and photovoltaic response times were found to be identical implying that the photovoltaic response is also governed by hot electron thermal relaxation. Response times of tau ~ 100 - 20 ps were found for temperatures from 3 - 100 K. Above 10 K, the relaxation time was observed to be tau = 25 +/- 5 ps, independent of temperature within noise.
Twisted bilayer graphene (TBG) hosts nearly flat bands with narrow bandwidths of a few meV at certain {\em magic} twist angles. Here we show that in twisted gapped Dirac material bilayers, or massive twisted bilayer graphenes (MTBG), isolated nearly flat bands below a threshold bandwidth $W_c$ are expected for continuous small twist angles up to a critical $θ_c$ depending on the flatness of the original bands and the interlayer coupling strength. Narrow bandwidths of $W \lesssim $30 meV are expected for $θ\lesssim 3^{\circ} $ for twisted Dirac materials with intrinsic gaps of $\sim 2$ eV that …
Gapped bilayer graphene can support the presence of intragap states due to kink gate potentials applied to the graphene layers. Electrons in these states display valley-momentum locking, which makes them attractive for topological valleytronics. Here, we show that kink-antikink local potentials enable modulated scattering of topological currents. We find that the kink-antikink coupling leads to anomalous steps in the junction conductance. Further, when the constriction detaches from the propagating modes, forming a loop, the conductance reveals the system energy spectrum. Remarkably, these kin…
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…
We study a bilayer two-dimension-electron-gas (2DEG) adjacent to a type-II superconductor thin film with a pinned vortex lattice. We find that with increasing interlayer tunneling, the system of half filling presents three phases: gapped phase-I (topological insulator), gapless critical phase-II (metal), and gapped phase-III (band insulator). The Hall conductance for phase-I/III is 2/0 $e^{2}/h$, and has non-quantized values in phase-II. The excitation (response to topological defect, a local vortex defect) in these three phases shows different behaviors due to the topological property of the …
We present gate-controlled single, double, and triple dot operation in electrostatically gapped bilayer graphene. Thanks to the recent advancements in sample fabrication, which include the encapsulation of bilayer graphene in hexagonal boron nitride and the use of graphite gates, it has become possible to electrostatically confine carriers in bilayer graphene and to completely pinch-off current through quantum dot devices. Here, we discuss the operation and characterization of electron-hole double dots. We show a remarkable degree of control of our device, which allows the implementation of tw…
