Electron transmission through the stacking domain boundary in multilayers graphene

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates how stacking faults in multilayer graphene affect electron transmission, revealing significant suppression near band touching points and an odd-even layer effect, with electric fields modulating transmission.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of electron transmission across stacking domain boundaries in multilayer graphene, highlighting layer-dependent effects and the influence of electric fields.

Findings

Transmission is strongly suppressed near the band touching point.

Odd-layer graphene exhibits a lower transmission due to a monolayer-like band.

Electric fields can enhance transmission by opening an energy gap.

Abstract

We present a theoretical study on the electron transmission through the AB-BA stacking boundary in multilayer graphene. Using the tight-binding model and the transfer matrix method, we calculate the electron transmission probability through the boundary as a function of electron Fermi energy in multilayers from bilayer to five-layer. We find that the transmission is strongly suppressed particularly near the band touching point, suggesting that the electronic conductivity in general multilayer graphenes is significantly interfered by stacking fault. The conductivity suppression by stacking fault is the strongest in the bilayer graphene, while it is gradually relaxed as increasing the number of layers. At a large carrier density, we observe an even-odd effect where the transmission is relatively lower in trilayer and five-layer than in bilayer and four-layer, and this is related to the existence of a monolayer-like linear band in odd layers. For bilayer graphene, we also study the effect of the perpendicular electric field opening an energy gap, and show that the band deformation enhances the electron transmission at a fixed carrier density.