Feature-Rich Electronic Properties in Graphene Ripples

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electronic properties of graphene ripples using first-principles calculations, revealing how their structure influences charge distribution, energy bands, and density of states, with implications for their electronic behavior.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of how ripple curvature and period affect electronic properties, highlighting differences between armchair and zigzag graphene ripples.

Findings

Armchair ripples are zero-gap semiconductors with split energy states.

Zigzag ripples show anisotropic energy bands and semi-metallic behavior.

Density of states features peaks explaining experimental observations.

Abstract

Graphene ripples possess peculiar essential properties owing to the strong chemical bonds, as an investigation using first principle calculations clearly revealed. Various charge distributions, bond lengths, energy bands, and densities of states strongly depend on the corrugation structures, ripple curvatures and periods. Armchair ripples belonging to a zero-gap semiconductor display split middle-energy states, while the zigzag ripples exhibit highly anisotropic energy bands, semi-metallic behavior implicated by the destruction of the Dirac cone, and the newly created critical points. Their density of states exhibit many low-lying prominent peaks and can explain the experimental measurements. There exist certain important similarities and differences between graphene ripples and carbon nanotubes.