Unique electronic and optical properties of stacking-modulated bilayer graphene under external magnetic fields.

This study delves into the magneto-electronic and magneto-optical properties of stacking-modulated bilayer graphene. By manipulating domain walls (DWs) across AB-BA domains periodically, we unveil oscillatory Landau subbands and the associated optical excitations. The DWs act as periodic potentials, yielding fascinating 1D spectral features. Our exploration reveals 1D phenomena localized to Bernal stacking, DW regions, and stacking boundaries, highlighting the intriguing formation of Landau state quantization influenced by the commensuration between the magnetic length and the system. The stable quantized localization within different regions leads to the emergence of unconventional quantized subbands. This study provides valuable insights into the essential properties of stacking-modulated bilayer graphene.

Electronic and optical properties of graphene nanoribbons in external fields.

A review work is done for the electronic and optical properties of graphene nanoribbons in magnetic, electric, composite, and modulated fields. Effects due to the lateral confinement, curvature, stacking, non-uniform subsystems and hybrid structures are taken into account. The special electronic properties, induced by complex competitions between external fields and geometric structures, include many one-dimensional parabolic subbands, standing waves, peculiar edge-localized states, width- and field-dependent energy gaps, magnetic-quantized quasi-Landau levels, curvature-induced oscillating Landau subbands, crossings and anti-crossings of quasi-Landau levels, coexistence and combination of energy spectra in layered structures, and various peak structures in the density of states. There exist diverse absorption spectra and different selection rules, covering edge-dependent selection rules, magneto-optical selection rule, splitting of the Landau absorption peaks, intragroup and intergroup Landau transitions, as well as coexistence of monolayer-like and bilayer-like Landau absorption spectra. Detailed comparisons are made between the theoretical calculations and experimental measurements. The predicted results, the parabolic subbands, edge-localized states, gap opening and modulation, and spatial distribution of Landau subbands, have been identified by various experimental measurements.

Rich magneto-absorption spectra of AAB-stacked trilayer graphene.

A generalized tight-binding model is developed to investigate the feature-rich magneto-optical properties of AAB-stacked trilayer graphene. Three intragroup and six intergroup inter-Landau-level (inter-LL) optical excitations largely enrich magneto-absorption peaks. In general, the former are much higher than the latter, depending on the phases and amplitudes of LL wavefunctions. The absorption spectra exhibit single- or twin-peak structures which are determined by quantum modes, LL energy spectra and Fermion distribution. The splitting LLs, with different localization centers (2/6 and 4/6 positions in a unit cell), can generate very distinct absorption spectra. There exist extra single peaks because of LL anti-crossings. AAB, AAA, ABA, and ABC stackings considerably differ from one another in terms of the inter-LL category, frequency, intensity, and structure of absorption peaks. The main characteristics of LL wavefunctions and energy spectra and the Fermi-Dirac function are responsible for the configuration-enriched magneto-optical spectra.

Magneto-electronic properties of multilayer graphenes.

This article reviews the rich magneto-electronic properties of multilayer graphene systems. Multilayer graphenes are built from graphene sheets attracting one another by van der Waals forces; the magneto-electronic properties are diversified by the number of layers and the stacking configurations. For an N-layer system, Landau levels are divided into N groups, with each identified by a dominant sublattice associated with the stacking configuration. We focus on the main characteristics of Landau levels, including the degeneracy, wave functions, quantum numbers, onset energies, field-dependent energy spectra, semiconductor-metal transitions, and crossing patterns, which are reflected in the magneto-optical spectroscopy, scanning tunneling spectroscopy, and quantum transport experiments. The Landau levels in AA-stacked graphene are responsible for multiple Dirac cones, while in AB-stacked graphene the Dirac properties depend on the number of graphene layers, and in ABC-stacked graphene the low-lying levels are related to surface states. The Landau-level mixing leads to anticrossings patterns in energy spectra, which are seen for intergroup Landau levels in AB-stacked graphene, while in particular, a formation of both intergroup and intragroup anticrossings is observed in ABC-stacked graphene. The aforementioned magneto-electronic properties lead to diverse optical spectra, plasma spectra, and transport properties when the stacking order and the number of layers are varied. The calculations are in agreement with optical and transport experiments, and novel features that have not yet been verified experimentally are presented.

Magneto-optical properties of ABC-stacked trilayer graphene.

The generalized tight-binding model is developed to investigate the magneto-optical absorption spectra of ABC-stacked trilayer graphene. The absorption peaks can be classified into nine categories of inter-Landau-level optical excitations, including three intra-group and six inter-group ones. Most of them belong to the twin-peak structures because of the asymmetric Landau level spectrum. The threshold absorption peak alone comes from a certain excitation channel, and its frequency is associated with a specific interlayer atomic interaction. The Landau-level anticrossings cause extra absorption peaks. Moreover, a simple relationship between the absorption frequency and the field strength is absent. The magneto-optical properties of ABC-stacked trilayer graphene are totally different from those of AAA- and ABA-stacked ones, such as the number, intensity and frequency of absorption peaks.

Multimode Friedel oscillations in monolayer and bilayer graphene.

This study systematically explores the influence of charged impurities on static screening in monolayer graphene and extends the investigation to AA-stacked and AB-stacked bilayer graphene (BLG). Applying the random phase approximation (RPA), monolayer graphene displays unique beating Friedel oscillations (FOs) in inter-valley and intra-valley channels. Shifting to BLG, the study emphasizes layer-specific responses on each layer by considering self-consistent field interactions between layers. It also explores the derived multimode FOs, elucidating distinctions from monolayer behavior. In AA-stacked BLG, distinct metallic screening behaviors are revealed, uncovering unique oscillatory patterns in induced charge density, providing insights into static Coulomb scattering effects between two Dirac cones. The exploration extends to AB-stacked BLG, unveiling layer-specific responses of parabolic bands in multimode FOs with increasing Fermi energy. This comprehensive investigation, integrating RPA considerations, significantly advances our understanding of layer-dependent static screening in the broader context of FOs in graphene, providing valuable contributions to the field of condensed matter physics.

Unusual electronic excitations in ABA trilayer graphene.

The tight-binding model is closely associated with the modified random-phase approximation to thoroughly explore the electron-electron interactions in trilayer AB-stacked graphene. The intralayer and interlayer atomic/Coulomb interactions dominate the collective and electron-hole excitations. The unusual energy bands are directly reflected in the diverse transferred momentum-frequency phase diagrams. There exist three kinds of plasmon modes during the variation of the doping level, being accompanied with the complicated intraband and interband single-particle excitations. The excitation behaviors are greatly diversified by the number of layers. The theoretical predictions require the high-resolution experimental examinations.

Coulomb decay rates in monolayer doped graphene.

Excited conduction electrons, conduction holes, and valence holes in monolayer electron-doped graphene exhibit unusual Coulomb decay rates. The deexcitation processes are studied using the screened exchange energy. They might utilize the intraband and interband single-particle excitations, as well as the plasmon modes, depending on the quasiparticle states and the Fermi energies. The low-lying valence holes can decay through the undamped acoustic plasmon, so that they present very fast Coulomb deexcitations, nonmonotonous energy dependence, and anisotropic behavior. However, the low-energy conduction electrons and holes are similar to those in a two-dimensional electron gas. The higher-energy conduction states and the deeper-energy valence ones behave similarly in the available deexcitation channels and have a similar dependence of decay rate on the wave vector.

Feature-rich magnetic quantization in sliding bilayer graphenes.

The generalized tight-binding model, based on the subenvelope functions of distinct sublattices, is developed to investigate the magnetic quantization in sliding bilayer graphenes. The relative shift of two graphene layers induces a dramatic transformation between the Dirac-cone structure and the parabolic band structure, and thus leads to drastic changes of Landau levels (LLs) in the spatial symmetry, initial formation energy, intergroup anti-crossing, state degeneracy and semiconductor-metal transition. There exist three kinds of LLs, i.e., well-behaved, perturbed and undefined LLs, which are characterized by a specific mode, a main mode plus side modes, and a disordered mode, respectively. Such LLs are clearly revealed in diverse magneto-optical selection rules. Specially, the undefined LLs frequently exhibit intergroup anti-crossings in the field-dependent energy spectra, and show a large number of absorption peaks without optical selection rules.