Metallic-to-insulating transition in disordered graphene monolayers

TL;DR

Disordered graphene monolayers exhibit a unique metallic-to-insulating transition driven by changes in density or Fermi energy, contrasting with traditional square lattice predictions and enabling potential new electronic applications.

Contribution

This study reveals a disorder-dependent metallic region in graphene, contrasting with existing two-dimensional scaling theory predictions for square lattices.

Findings

Metallic-to-insulating transition observed in disordered graphene.

Metallic region depends on disorder strength and vanishes at high disorder.

Contrasts with traditional 2D scaling theory predictions.

Abstract

We show that when graphene monolayers are disordered, the conductance exhibits a metallic-to-insulating transition, which opens the door to new electronic devices. The transition can be observed by driving the density or Fermi energy through the mobility edge. At the Dirac point the system is localized, whereas at higher densities there is a region of metallic behavior before the system becomes insulating again at higher densities. The region of metallic behavior depends on the disorder strength and eventually vanishes at high disorder. This result is quite unexpected since in square lattices, scaling theory predicts that this metallic region does not exist in two dimensions, in contrast to graphene, where the lattice is a honeycomb.