Electronic structure of a graphene superlattice with massive Dirac fermions

Abstract

We study the electronic and transport properties of a graphene-based superlattice theoretically by using an effective Dirac equation. The superlattice consists of a periodic potential applied on a single-layer graphene deposited on a substrate that opens an energy gap of $2\Delta$ in its electronic structure. We find that extra Dirac points appear in the electronic band structure under certain conditions, so it is possible to close the gap between the conduction and valence minibands. We show that the energy gap $E_g$ can be tuned in the range $0\le E_g\le 2\Delta$ by changing the periodic potential. We analyze the low energy electronic structure around the contact points and find that the effective Fermi velocity in very anisotropic and depends on the energy gap. We show that the extra Dirac points obtained here behave differently compared to previously studied systems.

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Tuning the Fano factor of graphene via Fermi velocity modulation
• Dirac wave transmission in Lévy disordered systems
• Electronic transport in disordered graphene superlattices with scale-free correlated barrier spacements
• Charge-pseudospin coupled diffusion in semi-Dirac graphene: pseudospin assisted valley transport
• Transport properties through alternating borophene and graphene superlattices
• Band structures and contact points in phosphorene superlattice