Gap opening in graphene by shear strain

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how applying shear and uniaxial strains to graphene can effectively open and tune its electronic energy gap up to 0.9 eV, enabling potential electronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method to modulate graphene's energy gap using combined shear and uniaxial strains, expanding strain engineering techniques.

Findings

Energy gap can be tuned from zero to 0.9 eV.

Shear deformation enables gap opening at moderate strains.

Strain-induced gap modulation is feasible below graphene's failure strain.

Abstract

We exploit the concept of strain-induced band structure engineering in graphene through the calculation of its electronic properties under uniaxial, shear, and combined uniaxial-shear deformations. We show that by combining shear deformations to uniaxial strains it is possible modulate the graphene energy gap value from zero up to $0.9$ eV. Interestingly enough, the use of a shear component allows for a gap opening at moderate absolute deformation, safely smaller than the graphene failure strain.