Unusual Coulomb excitations in ABC-stacked trilayer graphene

The layer-based random-phase approximation is further developed to investigate electronic excitations in tri-layer ABC-stacked graphene. All the layer-dependent atomic interactions and Coulomb interactions are included in the dynamic charge screening. There exist rich and unique (momentum, frequency)-excitation phase diagrams, in which the complex single-particle excitations and five kinds of plasmon modes, are dominated by the unusual energy bands and doping carrier densities. The latter frequently experience the significant Landau damping due to the former, leading to the coexistence/destruction in the energy loss spectra. Specifically, the dispersion of the only acoustic plasmon in pristine case is dramatically changed from linear into quadratic even at very low doping.Comment: 17 pages and 4 figure

Feature-Rich Electronic Properties in Graphene Ripples

Graphene ripples possess peculiar essential properties owing to the strong chemical bonds, as an investigation using first principle calculations clearly revealed. Various charge distributions, bond lengths, energy bands, and densities of states strongly depend on the corrugation structures, ripple curvatures and periods. Armchair ripples belonging to a zero-gap semiconductor display split middle-energy states, while the zigzag ripples exhibit highly anisotropic energy bands, semi-metallic behavior implicated by the destruction of the Dirac cone, and the newly created critical points. Their density of states exhibit many low-lying prominent peaks and can explain the experimental measurements. There exist certain important similarities and differences between graphene ripples and carbon nanotubes.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Combined Effect of Stacking and Magnetic Field on Plasmon Excitations in Bilayer Graphene

The electronic excitations of bilayer graphene (BLG) under a magnetic field are investigated with the use of the Peierls tight-binding model in conjunction with random-phase approximation (RPA). The interlayer atomic interactions, interlayer Coulomb interactions, and magnetic field effects are simultaneously included in the dielectric-function matrix. That enables us to derive the magneto-Coulomb-excitation spectrum of different stacking structures. The two typical arrangements of BLGs, AB and AA, are considered in this article. AB-BLG exhibits many discrete energy-loss peaks, which correspond to the quantization of electron energies. On the other hand, the AA-BLG spectra possess a unique and pronounced peak at low frequency. This peak represents the collective excitation of the entire low-frequency Landau states. The dependence of the energy-loss peaks on the momentum transfer and the magnetic field strength is presented. Accordingly, two kinds of plasmon modes produced by the layer stacking are clearly distinguished

Configuration- and concentration-dependent electronic properties of hydrogenated graphene

The electronic properties of hydrogenated graphenes are investigated with the first-principles calculations. Geometric structures, energy bands, charge distributions, and density of states (DOS) strongly depend on the different configurations and concentrations of hydrogen adatoms. Among three types of optimized periodical configurations, only in the zigzag systems the band gaps can be remarkably modulated by H-concentrations. There exist middle-gap semiconductors, narrow-gap semiconductors, and gapless systems. The band structures exhibit the rich features, including the destruction or recovery of the Dirac-cone structure, newly formed critical points, weakly dispersive bands, and (C,H)-related partially flat bands. The orbital-projected DOS are evidenced by the low-energy prominent peaks, delta-function-like peaks, discontinuous shoulders, and logarithmically divergent peaks. The DOS and spatial charge distributions clearly indicate that the critical bondings in C-C and C-H is responsible for the diversified properties

Geometry-diversified Coulomb excitations in trilayer AAB stacking graphene

The lower-symmetry trilayer AAB-stacked graphene exhibits rich electronic properties and thus diverse Coulomb excitations. Three pairs of unusual valence and conduction bands create nine available interband excitations for the undoped case, in which the imaginary (real) part of the polarizability shows 1D square root asymmetric peaks and 2D shoulder structures (pairs of antisymmetric peaks and logarithm type symmetric peaks). Moreover, the low frequency acoustic plasmon, being revealed as a prominent peak in the energy loss spectrum, can survive in a narrow gap system with the large-density-of-states from the valence band. This type of plasmon mode is similar to that in a narrow gap carbon nanotube. However, the decisive mechanism governing this plasmon is the intraband conduction state excitations. Its frequency, intensity and critical momentum exhibit a non-monotonic dependence on the Fermi energy. The well-defined electron-hole excitation boundaries and the higher frequency optical plasmons are transformed by varying the Fermi energy. There remain substantial differences between the electronic properties of trilayer AAB, ABC, AAA and ABA graphene stackings.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1601.00223 by other author

Chemical Bondings Induced Rich Electronic Properties of Oxygen Absorbed Few-layer Graphenes

Electronic properties of graphene oxides enriched by the strong chemical bondings are investigated using first-principle calculations. They are very sensitive to the changes in the number of graphene layer, stacking configuration, and distribution of oxygen. The feature-rich electronic structures exhibit the destruction or distortion of Dirac cone, opening of band gap, anisotropic energy dispersions, O- and (C,O)-dominated energy dispersions, and extra critical points. All the few-layer graphene oxides are semi-metals except for the semiconducting monolayer ones. For the former, the distorted Dirac-cone structures and the O-dominated energy bands near the Fermi level are revealed simultaneously. The orbital-projected density of states (DOS) have many special structures mainly coming from a composite energy band, the parabolic and partially flat ones. The DOS and spatial charge distributions clearly indicate the critical bondings in O-O, C-O and C-C bonds, being responsible for the diversified properties

The effect of perpendicular electric field on Temperature-induced plasmon excitations for intrinsic silicene

We use the tight-binding model and the random-phase approximation to investigate the intrinsic plasmon in silicene. At finite temperatures, an undamped plasmon is generated from the interplay between the intraband and the interband-gap transitions. The extent of the plasmon existence range in terms of momentum and temperature, which is dependent on the size of single-particle-excitation gap, is further tuned by applying a perpendicular electric field. The plasmon becomes damped in the interband-excitation region. A low damped zone is created by the field-induced spin split. The field-dependent plasmon spectrum shows a strong tunability in plasmon intensity and spectral bandwidth. This could make silicene a very suitable candidate for plasmonic applications

Chiral symmetry classes and Dirac nodal lines in three-dimensional layered systems

We study the existence and stability of Dirac nodal lines in three-dimensional layered systems, whose layers individually have Dirac nodal points protected by chiral (sublattice) symmetry. The model system we consider is the rhombohedral stack of graphene layers with each layer subjected to a uniform external potential that respects either AIII or BDI classes. From the Hamiltonians in either classes, a pair of nontrivial spiraling Dirac nodal lines can be derived. The results are reasonable in accord to the topological classification of gapless phases for codimension $2$. The nodal lines approach each other as the magnitude of the potential increases, revealing their annihilation due to the fact that regarding the full system their topological invariants are cancelled out.Comment: 5 pages and 2 figure

Novel Magnetic Quantization of Bismuthene

The generalized tight-binding model, being based on the spin-dependent sublattices, is developed to explore the magnetic quantization of monolayer bismuthene. The sp$^{3}$ orbital hybridizations, site energies, nearest and next-nearest hopping integrals, spin-orbital interactions and magnetic field (${B_{z}}$ ${\hat{z}}$) are taken into account simultaneously. There exist three groups of low-lying Landau levels (LLs), in which they are mainly from the (6p$_{x}$,6p$_{y}$,6p$_{z}$) orbitals, and only the first group belongs to the unoccupied conduction states. Furthermore, each group is further split into the spin-up- and spin-down-dominated subgroups. The six subgroups present the rich and unique $B_{z}$-dependent LL energy spectra, covering the specific or arc-shaped $$-dependences, the normal/irregular spin-split energies, and the non-crossing/crossing/anti-crossing behaviors. Specially, the second group of valence LLs near the Fermi level can create the frequent inter-subgroup LL anti-crossings since the main and side modes are comparable. The main features of energy spectra can create the special structures in density of states.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Electronic and optical properties of graphite-related systems

A systematic review is made for the AA-, AB- and ABC-stacked graphites. The generalized tight-binding model, accompanied with the effective-mass approximation and the Kubo formula, is developed to investigate electronic and optical properties in the presence/absence of a uniform magnetic field. The unusual electronic properties cover the stacking-dependent Dirac-cone structures, the significant energy widths along the stacking direction, the Landau subbands (LSs) crossing the Fermi level, the $B_0$-dependent LS energy spectra with crossings and anti-crossings, and the monolayer- or bilayer-like Landau wavefunctions. There exist the configuration-created special structures in density of states and optical spectra. Three kinds of graphites quite differ from one another in the available inter-LS excitation channels, including the number, frequency, intensity and structures of absorption peaks. The dimensional crossover presents the main similarities and differences between graphites and graphenes; furthermore, the quantum confinement enriches the magnetic quantization phenomena in carbon nanotubes and graphene nanoribbons. The cooperative/competitive relations among the interlayer atomic interactions, dimensions and magnetic quantization are responsible for the diversified essential properties. Part of theoretical predictions are consistent with the experimental measurements.Comment: 124 pages, 49 figure