No Arabic abstract
A new type of long-range ordering in the absence of translational symmetry gives rise to drastic revolution of our common knowledge in condensed matter physics. Quasicrystal, as such unconventional system, became a plethora to test our insights and to find exotic states of matter. In particular, electronic properties in quasicrystal have gotten lots of attention along with their experimental realization and controllability in twisted bilayer systems. In this work, we study how quasicrystalline order in bilayer systems can induce unique localization of electrons without any extrinsic disorders. We focus on dodecagonal quasicrystal that has been demonstrated in twisted bilayer graphene system in recent experiments. In the presence of small gap, we show the localization generically occurs due to non-periodic nature of quasicrystal, which is evidenced by the inverse participation ratio and the energy level statistics. We understand the origin of such localization by approximating the dodecagonal quasicrystals as an impurity scattering problem.
We describe the weak localization correction to conductivity in ultra-thin graphene films, taking into account disorder scattering and the influence of trigonal warping of the Fermi surface. A possible manifestation of the chiral nature of electrons in the localization properties is hampered by trigonal warping, resulting in a suppression of the weak anti-localization effect in monolayer graphene and of weak localization in bilayer graphene. Intervalley scattering due to atomically sharp scatterers in a realistic graphene sheet or by edges in a narrow wire tends to restore weak localization resulting in negative magnetoresistance in both materials.
A theoretical study of the magnetoelectronic properties of zigzag and armchair bilayer graphene nanoribbons (BGNs) is presented. Using the recursive Greens function method, we study the band structure of BGNs in uniform perpendicular magnetic fields and discuss the zero-temperature conductance for the corresponding clean systems. The conductance quantized as 2(n+1)G_ for the zigzag edges and nG_0 for the armchair edges with G_{0}=2e^2/h being the conductance unit and $n$ an integer. Special attention is paid to the effects of edge disorder. As in the case of monolayer graphene nanoribbons (GNR), a small degree of edge disorder is already sufficient to induce a transport gap around the neutrality point. We further perform comparative studies of the transport gap E_g and the localization length in bilayer and monolayer nanoribbons. While for the GNRs E_{g}^{GNR}is proportional to 1/W, the corresponding transport gap E_{g}^{BGN} for the bilayer ribbons shows a more rapid decrease as the ribbon width W is increased. We also demonstrate that the evolution of localization lengths with the Fermi energy shows two distinct regimes. Inside the transport gap, xi is essentially independent on energy and the states in the BGNs are significantly less localized than those in the corresponding GNRs. Outside the transport gap xi grows rapidly as the Fermi energy increases and becomes very similar for BGNs and GNRs.
Dodecagonal bilayer graphene quasicrystal has 12-fold rotational order but lacks translational symmetry which prevents the application of band theory. In this paper, we study the electronic and optical properties of graphene quasicrystal with large-scale tight-binding calculations involving more than ten million atoms. We propose a series of periodic approximants which reproduce accurately the properties of quasicrystal within a finite unit cell. By utilizing the band-unfolding method on the smallest approximant with only 2702 atoms, the effective band structure of graphene quasicrystal is derived. Novel features, such as the emergence of new Dirac points (especially the mirrored ones), the band gap at M point and the Fermi velocity are all in agreement with recent experiments. The properties of quasicrystal states are identified in the Landau level spectrum and optical excitations. Importantly, our results show that the lattice mismatch is the dominant factor determining the accuracy of layered approximants. The proposed approximants can be used directly for other layered materials in honeycomb lattice, and the design principles can be applied for any quasi-periodic incommensurate structures.
We have performed the first experimental investigation of quantum interference corrections to the conductivity of a bilayer graphene structure. A negative magnetoresistance - a signature of weak localisation - is observed at different carrier densities, including the electro-neutrality region. It is very different, however, from the weak localisation in conventional two-dimensional systems. We show that it is controlled not only by the dephasing time, but also by different elastic processes that break the effective time-reversal symmetry and provide invervalley scattering.
We have observed reproducible fluctuations of the Coulomb drag, both as a function of magnetic field and electron concentration, which are a manifestation of quantum interference of electrons in the layers. At low temperatures the fluctuations exceed the average drag, giving rise to random changes of the sign of the drag. The fluctuations are found to be much larger than previously expected, and we propose a model which explains their enhancement by considering fluctuations of local electron properties.