The wavefunction of a massless fermion consists of two chiralities, left-handed and right-handed, which are eigenstates of the chiral operator. The theory of weak interactions of elementally particle physics is not symmetric about the two chiralities, and such a symmetry breaking theory is referred to as a chiral gauge theory. The chiral gauge theory can be applied to the massless Dirac particles of graphene. In this paper we show within the framework of the chiral gauge theory for graphene that a topological soliton exists near the boundary of a graphene nanoribbon in the presence of a strain. This soliton is a zero-energy state connecting two chiralities and is an elementally excitation transporting a pseudospin. The soliton should be observable by means of a scanning tunneling microscopy experiment.
The effects of tensile strain on the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of hydrogenated-edge armchair graphene nanoribbons (HAGNRs) are investigated by using DFT theory. The strain is introduced in two different ways related to the two types of systems studied in this work: in-plane strained systems (A), and out-of-plane strained systems due to bending (B). These two kinds of strain lead to make a distinction among three cases: in-plane strained systems with strained electrodes (A1) and with unstrained electrodes (A2), and out-of-plane homogeneously strained systems with unstrained, fixed e…
An odd number of zigzag edges in armchair graphene nanoribbons and their mechanical properties (e.g., Young's modulus, Poisson ratio and shear modulus) have potential interest for bandgap engineering in graphene based optoelectronic devices. In this paper, we consider armchair graphene nanoribbons passivated with hydrogen at the armchair edges and then apply the strain for tuning the bandgaps. Using density functional theory calculations, our study finds that the precise control of strain can allow tuning the bandgap from semiconductor to mettalic and then again switching back to semiconductor…
We theoretically reveal the unusual features of the Josephson effect in a strained zigzag graphene nanoribbon with a small length relative to the superconducting coherence length and an arbitrary width. We find a step-wise variation of the critical supercurrent with the width of the nanoribbon, showing additional small width plateaus placed between the broad steps of a unstrained structure. We further demonstrate the peculiar quantization of the critical supercurrent in terms of the strain, resulted from the coupling of the pseudospin of Dirac fermions with the strain-induced gauge potential, …
Strain fold-like deformations on armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs) can be properly engineered in experimental setups, and could lead to a new controlling tool for gaps and transport properties. Here, we analyze the electronic properties of folded AGNRs relating the electronic responses and the mechanical deformation. An important and universal parameter for the gap engineering is the ribbon percent width variation, i.e., the difference between the deformed and undeformed ribbon widths. AGNRs bandgap can be tuned mechanically in a well defined bounded range of energy values, eventually lead…
The band structures of strained graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are examined by a tight binding Hamiltonian that is directly related to the type and strength of strains. Compared to the two-dimensional graphene whose band gap remains close to zero even if a large strain is applied, the band gap of graphene nanoribbon (GNR) is sensitive to both uniaxial and shears strains. The effect of strain on the electronic structure of a GNR strongly depends on its edge shape and structural indices. For an armchair GNR, uniaxial weak strain changes the band gap in a linear fashion, and for a large strain, it r…
We theoretically investigate the spin-charge transport in two-terminal device of graphene nanoribbons in the presence of an uniform uniaxial strain, spin-orbit coupling, exchange field and smooth staggered potential. We show that the direction of applied strain can efficiently tune strain-strength induced oscillation of band-gap of armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR). It is also found that electronic conductance in both AGNR and zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNRs) oscillates with Rashba spin-orbit coupling akin to the Datta-Das field effect transistor. Two distinct strain response regimes of e…
We study the influence of ripple waves originating from the electromechanical effects on spin relaxation caused by electromagnetic fields in armchair and zigzag graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). By utilizing analytical expressions supported by numerical simulations, we show that it is possible to tune the spin flip behaviors ON and OFF due to ripple waves in GNRs for potential applications in straintronic devices. This finding is similar to recently made observations on the design of spintronic devices in III-V semiconductor quantum dots, where the sign change in the effective Land$\mathrm{\acute{e…
The geometric, electronic and magnetic properties of strained graphene nanoribbons were investigated using spin polarized calculations within the framework of density functional theory. Cases of compressive stress along the longer axis of a nanoribbon and tensile stress at the midpoint and perpendicular to the plane of the nanoribbon were considered. Significant structural changes were observed including the formation of nanoripples. The calculated electronic and magnetic properties strongly depend on the size and shape of nanoribbons. The tunable magnetic properties of strained nanoribbons ca…
Based on first-principles approaches, we study the ballistic phonon transport properties of finite monatomic carbon chains stretched between graphene nanoribbons, an $sp$-$sp^2$ hybrid carbon nanostructure that has recently seen significant experimental advances in its synthesis. We find that the lattice thermal conductance anomalously increases with tensile strain for the even-numbered carbon chains that adopt the alternating bond-length polyyne configuration. On the other hand, in the odd-numbered carbon chain cases, which assume the equal bond-length cumulene configuration, phonon conductan…
We describe a simple setup generating pure valley currents -- valley transport without charge transport -- in strained graphene nanoribbons with zigzag edges. The crucial ingredient is a uniaxial strain pattern which couples to the low-energy Dirac electrons as a uniform pseudomagnetic field. Remarkably, the resulting pseudo-Landau levels are not flat but disperse linearly from the Dirac points, with an opposite slope in the two valleys. We show how this is a natural consequence of an inhomogeneous Fermi velocity arising in the low-energy theory describing the system, which maps to an exactly-…
The Landauer-Büttiker conductivity of arbitrary uniaxial spatially dependent strain in an armchair graphene nanoribbon is studied. Due to the uniaxial character of the strain, the corresponding transfer matrix can be reduced to a product of $2\times2$ matrices. Then the conductivity and the Fano factor can be calculated from this product. As an example of the technique, sinusoidal space dependent strain fields are studied using two different strain wavelengths. For the bigger wavelength the conductivity is reduced when compared with the unstrained case, although both conductivities are almost …
We report the emergence of electronic edge states in time-periodically driven strained armchair terminated graphene nanoribbons. This is done by considering a short-pulse spatial-periodic strain field. Then, the tight-binding Hamiltonian of the system is mapped into a one dimensional ladder. The time periodicity is considered within the Floquet formalism. Thus the quasienergy spectrum is found numerically by diagonalizing the evolution operator. For some particular cases, the quasienergy spectrum is found analytically. We find that the system is able to support gapless and gapped phases. Very …
We study the emergence of electronic non-trivial topological flat bands in time-periodically driven strained graphene within a tight binding approach based on the Floquet formalism. In particular, we focus on uniaxial spatially periodic strain since it can be mapped onto an effective one-dimensional system. Also, two kinds of time-periodic driving are considered: a short pulse (delta kicking) and a sinusoidal variation (harmonic driving). We prove that for special strain wavelengths, the system is described by a two level Dirac Hamiltonian. Even though the study case is gapless, we find that t…
Strained graphene with lattice deformations has been demonstrated to give rise to large pseudomagnetic fields and host many exotic properties. Here, we propose a non-magnetic approach to realize a momentum-dependent out-of-plane spin splitting in strained graphene nanoribbons with a moderate spin-orbit coupling. This unique spin splitting distincts from the well-known Zeeman-type spin splitting and the Rashba-type spin splitting. Our analysis indicates that the competition between quantum spin Hall edge states and valley edge states in the nanoribbon leads to the unique spin splitting. The qua…
We investigate the impact of strained nanobubbles on the conductance characteristics of graphene nanoribbons using a combined molecular dynamics - tight-binding simulation scheme. We describe in detail how the conductance, density of states, and current density of zigzag or armchair graphene nanoribbons are modified by the presence of a nanobubble. In particular, we establish that low-energy electrons can be confined in the vicinity or within the nanobubbles by the delicate interplay between the pseudomagnetic field pattern created by the shape of the bubble, mode mixing, and substrate interac…
In the present molecular dynamics study, external ac driving is used at frequencies outside the phonon spectrum to excite gap DBs in uniformly strained graphene nanoribbon. Harmonic displacement or harmonic force is applied to a zigzag atomic chain of graphene. In the former case non-propagating DBs are excited on the atoms next to the driven atoms, while in the latter case the excited DBs propagate along the nanoribbon. The energy transfer along the nanoribbon assisted by the DBs is investigated in detail and the differences between harmonic displacement driving and harmonic force driving are…
To address the robustness of the transport gap induced by locally strained regions in graphene nanostructures, the effect of disorder and smoothness of the interface region is investigated within the Landauer-Büttiker formalism. The electronic conductance across strained junctions and barriers in graphene nanoribbons is calculated numerically, with and without various types of disorder, and comparing smooth and sharp strain junctions. A smooth strain barrier in graphene is seen to be generically as efficient in suppressing transport at low densities as a sharp one, and the critical density (or…
Topological origin of flat-bands as pseudo-Landau levels in uniaxial strained graphene nanoribbons and induced magnetic ordering due to electron-electron interactions
We investigate the role played by electron traps on adiabatic charge transport for graphene nanoribbons in the presence of an acoustically induced longitudinal surface acoustic wave (SAW) potential. Due to the weak longitudinal SAW-induced potential as well as the strong transverse confinement by a nanoribbon, minibandsof sliding tunnel-coupled quantum dots are formed so that by varying the chemical potential to pass through the minigaps, quantized adiabatic charge transport may be obtained. We analyze the way that the minigaps may be closed, thereby destroying the likelihood of current quanti…
Using a combination of accurate density-functional theory and a nonequilibrium Green function's method, we calculate the ballistic thermal conductance characteristics of tensile-strained armchair (AGNR) and zigzag (ZGNR) edge graphene nanoribbons, with widths between 3-50 Å. The optimized lateral lattice constants for AGNRs of different widths display a three-family behavior when the ribbons are grouped according to N modulo 3, where $N$ represents the number of carbon atoms across the width of the ribbon. Two lowest-frequency out-of-plane acoustic modes play a decisive role in increasing the …
Pseudo-magnetic field becomes an experimental reality after the observation of zero-field Landau level-like quantization in strained graphene, but it is not expected that the time-reversal symmetric pseudo-magnetic fields will have any effect on the spin degree of freedom of the charge carriers. Here, we demonstrate that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) could act as a bridge between pseudo-magnetic field and spin. In quantum spin Hall (QSH) states, the direction of the spin of edge states is tied to their direction of motion because of the SOC. The pseudo-magnetic field affects the clockwise and coun…
Electronic properties of bilayer graphene are distinct from both the conventional two dimensional electron gas and monolayer graphene due to its particular chiral properties and excitation charge carrier dispersions. We study the effect of strain on the electronic structure, the edge-states and charge transport of bilayer graphene nanoribbon at zero-temperature. We demonstrate a valley polarized quantum Hall effect in biased bilayer graphene when the system is subjected to a perpendicular magnetic field. In this system a topological phase transition from a quantum valley Hall to a valley polar…
The light-like dispersion of graphene monolayer results in many novel electronic properties in it1, however, this gapless feature also limits the applications of graphene monolayer in digital electronics2. A rare working solution to generate a moderate bandgap in graphene monolayer is to cut it into one-dimensional (1D) nanometre-wide ribbons3-13. Here we show that a wide bandgap can be created in a unique 1D strained structure, i.e., graphene-nanoribbon-like (GNR-like) structure, of a continuous graphene sheet via strong interaction between graphene and the metal substrate, instead of cutting…
We study the confinement of Dirac fermions in armchair graphene nanoribbons by means of a quantum-dot-type electrostatic potential. With the use of specific projection operators, we find exact solutions for some bound states that satisfy appropriate boundary conditions. We show that the energies of these bound states belong either to the gap of valence and conducting bands or they represent BIC's (bound states in the continuum) whose energies are embedded in the continuous spectrum.
An exact mapping of the tight-binding Hamiltonian for a graphene's nanoribbon under any armchair uniaxial strain into an effective one-dimensional system is presented. As an application, for a periodic modulation we have found a gap opening at the Fermi level and a complex fractal spectrum, akin to the Hofstadter butterfly resulting from the Harper model. The latter can be explained by the commensurability or incommensurability nature of the resulting effective potential. When compared with the zig-zag uniaxial periodic strain, the spectrum shows much bigger gaps, although in general the state…
Cryogenic interface-state filling and tunneling mechanisms in strained Ge/SiGe heterostructures
University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）；CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学院量子信息与量子物理学前沿卓越中心）；Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室）；Beijing Superstring Academy of Memory Technology（北京超弦记忆技术研究院）；Origin Quantum Computing Company Limited（本源量子计算科技有限责任公司）
The main challenge to exploiting plasmons for gas vibrational mode sensing is the extremely weak infrared absorption of gas species. In this work, we explore the possibility of trapping free gas molecules via surface adsorption, optical, or electrostatic fields to enhance gas-plasmon interactions and to increase plasmon sensing ability. We discuss the relative strengths of these trapping forces and found gas adsorption in a typical nanoribbon array plasmonic setup produces measurable dips in optical extinction of magnitude 0.1 % for gas concentration of about parts per thousand level.
The interplay between uniaxial strain and charging effects in zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNR) is investigated by using non-equilibrium Green's function formalism. The I-V characteristic curves and especially negative differential resistance (NDR) induced by some quantum selection rules are affected by the type, strength and also direction of the applied strain. For the oblique strain, the parity conservation fails while it conserves at the longitudinal and transverse strains. Therefore, in the oblique strain, on-off current ratio drastically decreases in compared to the un-strained case. Fo…
A recent experimental study showed that an induced folded flap of graphene can spontaneously drive itself its tearing and peeling off a substrate, thus producing long, micrometer sized, regular trapezoidal-shaped folded graphene nanoribbons. As long as the size of the graphene flaps is above a threshold value, the 'tug of war' between the forces of adhesion of graphene-graphene and graphene-substrate, flexural strain of folded region and carbon-carbon (C-C) covalent bonds favor the self-tearing and self-peeling off process. As the detailed information regarding the atomic scale mechanism invol…
Stimulated by recent advances in isolating graphene, we discovered that quantum dot can be trapped in Z-shaped graphene nanoribbon junciton. The topological structure of the junction can confine electronic states completely. By varying junction length, we can alter the spatial confinement and the number of discrete levels within the junction. In addition, quantum dot can be realized regardless of substrate induced static disorder or irregular edges of the junction. This device can be used to easily design quantum dot devices. This platform can also be used to design zero-dimensional functional…
Confinement in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides is an attractive platform for trapping single charge and spins for quantum information processing. Here, we present low temperature electron transport through etched 50-70nm MoS2 nanoribbons showing current oscillations as a function of gate voltage. On further investigations current through the device forms diamond shaped domains as a function of source-drain and gate voltage. We associate these current oscillations and diamond shaped current domains with Coulomb blockade due to single electron tunneling through a quantum dot for…
We study the quasi-bound state and the transport properties in the T-shaped graphene nanoribbon consisting of a metallic armchair-edge ribbon connecting to a zigzag-edge sidearm. We systematically study the condition under which there are quasi-bound states in the system for a wide range of the system size. It is found that when the width of the sidearm is about half of the width of the armchair leads, there is a quasi-bound state trapped at the intersection of the T-shape structure. The quasi-bound states are truly localized in the sidearm but have small continuum components in the armchair l…
We propose a quantum electronic device based on strained graphene nanoribbon. Mechanical strain, internal exchange field and spin-orbit couplings (SOCs) have been exploited as principle parameters to tune physical properties of the device. We predict a remarkable zero-field topological quantum phase transition between the time-reversal-symmetry broken quantum spin hall (QSH) and quantum anomalous hall (QAH) states, which was previously thought to take place only in the presence of finite magnetic field. We illustrate as intrinsic SOC is tuned, how two different helicity edge states located in …
