Recent experiments reveal a significant increase in the graphene Fermi velocity close to charge neutrality. This has widely been interpreted as a confirmation of the logarithmic divergence of the graphene Fermi velocity predicted by a perturbative ap
proach. In this work, we reconsider this problem using functional bosonization techniques calculating the effects of electron interactions on the density of states non-perturbatively. We find that the renormalized velocity is {it finite} and independent of the high energy cut-off, and we argue that the experimental observations are better understood in terms of an anomalous dimension. Our results also represent a bosonized solution for interacting Weyl fermions in (2+1) dimensions at half-filing.
When graphene is close to charge neutrality, its energy landscape is highly inhomogeneous, forming a sea of electron-like and hole-like puddles, which determine the properties of graphene at low carrier density. However, the details of the puddle for
mation have remained elusive. We demonstrate numerically that in sharp contrast to monolayer graphene, the normalized autocorrelation function for the puddle landscape in bilayer graphene depends only on the distance between the graphene and the source of the long-ranged impurity potential. By comparing with available experimental data, we find quantitative evidence for the implied differences in scanning tunneling microscopy measurements of electron and hole puddles for monolayer and bilayer graphene in nominally the same disorder potential.
Assuming diffusive carrier transport and employing an effective medium theory, we calculate the temperature dependence of bilayer graphene conductivity due to Fermi-surface broadening as a function of carrier density. We find that the temperature dep
endence of the conductivity depends strongly on the amount of disorder. In the regime relevant to most experiments, the conductivity is a function of T/T*, where T* is the characteristic temperature set by disorder. We demonstrate that experimental data taken from various groups collapse onto a theoretically predicted scaling function.
We compare a fully quantum mechanical numerical calculation of the conductivity of graphene to the semiclassical Boltzmann theory. Considering a disorder potential that is smooth on the scale of the lattice spacing, we find quantitative agreement bet
ween the two approaches away from the Dirac point. At the Dirac point the two theories are incompatible at weak disorder, although they may be compatible for strong disorder. Our numerical calculations provide a quantitative description of the full crossover between the quantum and semiclassical graphene transport regimes.
We review the physics of charged impurities in the vicinity of graphene. The long-range nature of Coulomb impurities affects both the nature of the ground state density profile as well as graphenes transport properties. We discuss the screening of a
single Coulomb impurity and the ensemble averaged density profile of graphene in the presence of many randomly distributed impurities. Finally, we discuss graphenes transport properties due to scattering off charged impurities both at low and high carrier density.
We reduce the dimensionless interaction strength in graphene by adding a water overlayer in ultra-high vacuum, thereby increasing dielectric screening. The mobility limited by long-range impurity scattering is increased over 30 percent, due to the ba
ckground dielectric constant enhancement leading to reduced interaction of electrons with charged impurities. However, the carrier-density-independent conductivity due to short range impurities is decreased by almost 40 percent, due to reduced screening of the impurity potential by conduction electrons. The minimum conductivity is nearly unchanged, due to canceling contributions from the electron/hole puddle density and long-range impurity mobility. Experimental data are compared with theoretical predictions with excellent agreement.
Transport in graphene nanoribbons with an energy gap in the spectrum is considered in the presence of random charged impurity centers. At low carrier density, we predict and establish that the system exhibits a density inhomogeneity driven two dimens
ional metal-insulator transition that is in the percolation universality class. For very narrow graphene nanoribbons (with widths smaller than the disorder induced length-scale), we predict that there should be a dimensional crossover to the 1D percolation universality class with observable signatures in the transport gap. In addition, there should be a crossover to the Boltzmann transport regime at high carrier densities. The measured conductivity exponent and the critical density are consistent with this percolation transition scenario.
A Drude-Boltzmann theory is used to calculate the transport properties of bilayer graphene. We find that for typical carrier densities accessible in graphene experiments, the dominant scattering mechanism is overscreened Coulomb impurities that behav
e like short-range scatterers. We anticipate that the conductivity $sigma(n)$ is linear in $n$ at high density and has a plateau at low density corresponding to a residual density of $n^* = sqrt{n_{rm imp} {tilde n}}$, where ${tilde n}$ is a constant which we estimate using a self-consistent Thomas-Fermi screening approximation to be ${tilde n} approx 0.01 ~q_{rm TF}^2 approx 140 times 10^{10} {rm cm}^{-2}$. Analytic results are derived for the conductivity as a function of the charged impurity density. We also comment on the temperature dependence of the bilayer conductivity.
Motivated by recent experiments on suspended graphene showing carrier mobilities as high as 200,000 cm^2/Vs, we theoretically calculate transport properties assuming Coulomb impurities as the dominant scattering mechanism. We argue that the substrate
-free experiments done in the diffusive regime are consistent with our theory and verify many of our earlier predictions including (i) removal of the substrate will increase mobility since most of the charged impurities are in the substrate, (ii) the minimum conductivity is not universal, but depends on impurity concentration with cleaner samples having a higher minimum conductivity. We further argue that experiments on suspended graphene put strong constraints on the two parameters involved in our theory, namely, the charged impurity concentration n_imp and d, the typical distance of a charged impurity from the graphene sheet. The recent experiments on suspended graphene indicate a residual impurity density of 1-2 times 10^{10} cm^{-2} which are presumably stuck to the graphene interface, compared to impurity densities of ~10^{12} cm^{-2} for graphene on SiO_2 substrate. Transport experiments can therefore be used as a spectroscopic tool to identify the properties of the remaining impurities in suspended graphene.
Different scattering mechanisms in graphene are explored and conductivity is calculated within the Boltzmann transport theory. We provide results for short-range scattering using the Random Phase Approximation for electron screening, as well as analy
tical expressions for the dependence of conductivity on the dielectric constant of the substrate. We further examine the effect of ripples on the transport using a surface roughness model developed for semiconductor heterostructures. We find that close to the Dirac point, sigma sim n^beta, where beta=1,0,-2 for Coulomb, short-range and surface roughness respectively; implying that Coulomb scattering dominates over both short-range and surface roughness scattering at low density.
