A tight-binding approach to uniaxial strain in graphene

Abstract

We analyze the effect of tensional strain in the electronic structure of graphene. In the absence of electron-electron interactions, within linear elasticity theory, and a tight-binding approach, we observe that strain can generate a bulk spectral gap. However this gap is critical, requiring threshold deformations in excess of 20%, and only along preferred directions with respect to the underlying lattice. The gapless Dirac spectrum is robust for small and moderate deformations, and the gap appears as a consequence of the merging of the two inequivalent Dirac points, only under considerable deformations of the lattice. We discuss how strain-induced anisotropy and local deformations can be used as a means to affect transport characteristics and pinch off current flow in graphene devices.

Expanded version of the original paper

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• All-graphene integrated circuits via strain engineering
• Merging of Dirac points in a two-dimensional crystal
• Strained graphene: tight-binding and density functional calculations
• Comment on "Band structure engineering of graphene by strain: First-principles calculations"
• Zero modes, energy gap, and edge states of anisotropic honeycomb lattice in a magnetic field