Spin-orbit gap of graphene: First-principles calculations

Abstract

Even though graphene is a low energy system consisting of the two dimensional honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms, its quasi-particle excitations are fully described by the 2+1 dimensional relativistic Dirac equation. In this paper we show that while the spin-orbit interaction in graphene is of the order of $4meV$, it opens up a gap of the order of $10^{-3}meV$ at the Dirac points. We present the first principle calculation of the spin-orbit gap, and explain the behavior in terms of a simple tight-binding model. Our result also shows that the recently predicted quantum spin Hall effect in graphene can only occur at unrealistically low temperature.

4 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Unconventional Integer Quantum Hall effect in graphene
• Strong suppression of weak (anti)localization in graphene

Cited by in corpus (13)

• The electronic properties of graphene
• Valley Dependent Optoelectronics from Inversion Symmetry Breaking
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• Topological Mott Insulators
• Dynamical polarization, screening, and plasmons in gapped graphene
• Polarization Charge Distribution in Gapped Graphene
• Wavevector-dependent spin filtering and spin transport through magnetic barriers in graphene
• All-Optical Manipulation of Electron Spins in Carbon-Nanotube Quantum Dots
• Electronic properties of graphene and graphene nanoribbons with "pseudo-Rashba" spin-orbit coupling
• Ground-state properties of gapped graphene using the random phase approximation
• Magnetotransport through graphene spin valves
• Localized magnetic states in biased bilayer and trilayer graphene
• Theory of AC Anomalous Hall Conductivity in d-electron systems