ABSTRACT
Polarons are quasi-particles made from electrons interacting with vibrations in crystal lattices. They derive their name from the strong electron-vibration polar interactions in ionic systems, that induce spectroscopic and optical signatures of such quasi-particles. In this paper, we focus on diamond, a non-polar crystal with inversion symmetry which nevertheless shows interesting signatures stemming from electron-vibration interactions, better denoted "nonpolaron" signatures in this case. The (non)polaronic effects are produced by short-range crystal fields, while long-range quadrupoles only have a small influence. The corresponding many-body spectral function has a characteristic energy dependence, showing a plateau structure that is similar to but distinct from the satellites observed in the polar Fröhlich case. We determine the temperature-dependent spectral function of diamond by two methods: the standard Dyson-Migdal approach, which calculates electron-phonon interactions within the lowest-order expansion of the self-energy, and the cumulant expansion, which includes higher orders of electron-phonon interactions. The latter corrects the nonpolaron energies and broadening, providing a more realistic spectral function, which we examine in detail for both conduction and valence band edges.
ABSTRACT
The discovery of superconductivity and correlated electronic states in the flat bands of twisted bilayer graphene has raised a lot of excitement. Flat bands also occur in multilayer graphene flakes that present rhombohedral (ABC) stacking order on many consecutive layers. Although Bernal-stacked (AB) graphene is more stable, long-range ABC-ordered flakes involving up to 50 layers have been surprisingly observed in natural samples. Here, we present a microscopic atomistic model, based on first-principles density functional theory calculations, that demonstrates how shear stress can produce long-range ABC order. A stress-angle phase diagram shows under which conditions ABC-stacked graphene can be obtained, providing an experimental guide for its synthesis.