Graphene in periodic deformation fields: dielectric screening and plasmons

TL;DR

This paper explores how periodic deformations in graphene influence its electronic properties, including electron velocity, dielectric screening, and plasmon spectra, revealing controllable plasmon behavior via strain engineering.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of how periodic strain fields affect dielectric screening and plasmon spectra in graphene, providing new insights into strain-based electronic control.

Findings

Periodic scalar potential is strongly suppressed by screening.

Electron velocity near the Dirac point depends on the type of periodic perturbation.

Plasmon spectra in graphene can be effectively tuned by periodic strain.

Abstract

We consider the effect of periodic scalar and vector potentials generated by periodic deformations of the graphene crystal lattice, on the energy spectrum of electrons. The dependence of electron velocity near the Dirac point on the periodic perturbations of different types is discussed. We also investigated the effect of screening of the scalar potential by calculating the dielectric function as a function of the wave length of the periodic potential. This calculation shows that the periodic scalar field is strongly suppressed by the screening. Using the dependence of electron velocity on the periodic field we also studied the variation of the plasmon spectra in graphene. We found that the spectrum of plasmon excitations can be effectively controlled by the periodic strain field.