Change in Stacking Order and Lifshitz transition in Bi-layer Graphene

TL;DR

This paper studies how an external electric field induces a Lifshitz transition in bilayer graphene with AB stacking, revealing topological changes in the electronic structure that are tunable by bias and affected by many-body effects.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the Lifshitz transition in bilayer graphene is bias-tunable and explores the impact of many-body effects on this tunability, also comparing different stacking configurations.

Findings

Lifshitz transition is bias-tunable in AB-stacked bilayer graphene.

Trigonal warping causes splitting into four pockets in the energy bands.

Many-body effects significantly influence the bias-tunability of the transition.

Abstract

We consider the AB-(Bernal) stacking for the bi-layer graphene (BLG) system and assume that a perpendicular electric field is created by the external gates deposited on the BLG surface. In the basis (A1, B2, A2, B1) for the valley K and the basis (B2, A1, B1, A2) for the valley K', we show the occurrence of trigonal warping [ see A. S. N\'u\~nez et al.,arXiv:1012.4318], that is, splitting of the energy bands or the density of states on the kx - ky plane into four pockets comprising of the central part and three legs due to a (skew) interlayer hopping between A1 and B2. The hopping between A1 - B2 leads to a concurrent velocity v3in addition to the Fermi velocity vF. Our noteworthy outcome is that the above-mentioned topological change, referred to as the Lifshitz transition [I. M. Lishitz, Zh. Exp. Teor. Fiz., 38, 1565 (1960) (Sov. Phys. JETP 11, 1130 (1960));Y. Lemonik, I.L. Aleiner, C. Toke, and V.I. Fal'ko; arXiv:1006.1399], is entirely bias-tunable. Furthermore, the many-body effects, which is known to yield logarithmic renormalizations [C. Hwang, D. A. Siegel, Sung-Kwan Mo, W. Regan, A. Ismach, Y. Zhang, A. Zettl and A. Lanzara, arXiv:1208.0567] in the band dispersions of monolayer graphene, is found to have significant effect on the bias-tunability of this transition. We also consider the system where the A atoms of the two layers are over each other and the B atoms of the layers are displaced with respect to each other. The trigonal warping is found to be absent in this case. Instead, the Fermi energy density of states for zero bias corresponds to the inverted sombrero-like structure. The structure is found to get deformed due to the increase in the bias.