Configuration-enriched magnetoelectronic spectra of AAB-stacked trilayer graphene

TL;DR

This study develops a generalized tight-binding model to explore the complex magneto-electronic spectra of AAB-stacked trilayer graphene, revealing detailed Landau level structures, wavefunction localizations, and density of states features.

Contribution

The paper introduces a comprehensive tight-binding approach to analyze AAB-stacked trilayer graphene's magneto-electronic properties, highlighting unique Landau level behaviors and spectral features.

Findings

Multiple Landau level groups with distinct sublattice localizations

Frequent Landau level crossings and anticrossings under varying magnetic fields

Rich density of states peak structures observed

Abstract

We developed the generalized tight-binding model to study the magneto-electronic properties of AAB-stacked trilayer graphene. Three groups of Landau levels (LLs) are characterized by the dominating subenvelope function on distinct sublattices. Each LL group could be further divided into two sub-groups in which the wavefunctions are, respectively, localized at 2/6 (5/6) and 4/6 (1/6) of the total length of the enlarged unit cell. The unoccupied conduction and the occupied valence LLs in each sub-group behave similarly. For the first group, there exist certain important differences between the two sub-groups, including the LL energy spacings, quantum numbers, spatial distributions of the LL wavefunctions, and the field-dependent energy spectra. The LL crossings and anticrossings occur frequently in each sub-group during the variation of field strengths, which thus leads to the very complex energy spectra and the seriously distorted wavefunctions. Also, the density of states (DOS) exhibits rich symmetric peak structures. The predicted results could be directly examined by experimental measurements. The magnetic quantization is quite different among the AAB-, AAA-, ABA-, and ABC-stacked configurations.