English

Is graphene in vacuum an insulator?

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2009-01-15 v2 High Energy Physics - Lattice

Abstract

We present evidence, from Lattice Monte Carlo simulations of the phase diagram of graphene as a function of the Coulomb coupling between quasiparticles, that graphene in vacuum is likely to be an insulator. We find a semimetal-insulator transition at αgcrit=1.11±0.06\alpha_g^\text{crit} = 1.11 \pm 0.06, where αg2.16\alpha_g^{} \simeq 2.16 in vacuum, and αg0.79\alpha_g^{} \simeq 0.79 on a SiO2_2^{} substrate. Our analysis uses the logarithmic derivative of the order parameter, supplemented by an equation of state. The insulating phase disappears above a critical number of four-component fermion flavors 4<Nfcrit<64 < N_f^{\text{crit}} < 6. Our data are consistent with a second-order transition.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0807.0834,
  title  = {Is graphene in vacuum an insulator?},
  author = {Joaquín E. Drut and Timo A. Lähde},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0807.0834},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures, published version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:57:42.274Z