English

Gate-induced Dirac cones in multilayer graphenes

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2013-02-22 v2

Abstract

We study the electronic structures of ABA (Bernal) stacked multilayer graphenes in uniform perpendicular electric field, and show that the interplay of the trigonal warping and the potential asymmetry gives rise to a number of emergent Dirac cones nearly touching at zero energy. The band velocity and the energy region (typically a few tens of meV) of these gate-induced Dirac cones are tunable with the external electric field. In ABA trilayer graphene, in particular, applying an electric field induces a non-trivial valley Hall state, where the energy gap at the Dirac point is filled by chiral edge modes which propagate in opposite directions between two valleys. In four-layer graphene, in contrast, the valley Hall conductivity is zero and there are no edge modes filling in the gap. A nontrivial valley Hall state generally occurs in asymmetric odd layer graphenes and this is closely related to a hidden chiral symmetry which exists only in odd layer graphenes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1211.7189,
  title  = {Gate-induced Dirac cones in multilayer graphenes},
  author = {Takahiro Morimoto and Mikito Koshino},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.7189},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

13 pages, 7 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:46:41.165Z