Scattering of charge carriers in graphene induced by topological defects

TL;DR

This paper investigates how topological defects like holes, pentagons, and heptagons affect charge carrier scattering in graphene, revealing their distinct impacts on electron transport and interference patterns.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of scattering effects caused by various topological defects in graphene, highlighting the negligible impact of holes and the scattering behavior near pentagons and heptagons.

Findings

Holes have negligible effect on resistivity at low concentrations.

Pentagons cause angle-dependent scattering of currents, affecting interference patterns.

Heptagons diverge currents, preventing interference between scattered beams.

Abstract

We study the scattering of graphene quasiparticles by topological defects, represented by holes, pentagons and heptagons. For the case of holes, we obtain the phase shift and found that at low concentration they appear to be irrelevant for the electron transport, giving a negligible contribution to the resistivity. Whenever pentagons are introduced into the lattice and the fermionic current is constrained to move near one of them we realize that such a current is scattered with an angle that depends only on the number of pentagons and on the side the current taken. Such a deviation may be determined by means of a Young-type experiment, through the interference pattern between the two current branches scattered by a pentagon. In the case of a heptagon such a current is also scattered but it diverges from the defect, preventing a interference between two beams of current for the same heptagon.