Confined states in graphene quantum blisters

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electronic properties of graphene quantum blisters, revealing how electron and hole states are confined and how their spectra are affected by various parameters like bias and coupling.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of confined states in graphene quantum blisters, including their spectra, layer localization, and robustness against coupling variations.

Findings

Confined states exhibit strong anti-crossings due to layer coupling.

Layer localization can occur at the blister edge for finite angular momentum.

Confinement persists despite variations in inter-layer coupling.

Abstract

Bilayer graphene samples may exhibit regions where the two layers are locally delaminated forming a so-called quantum blister in the graphene sheet. Electron and hole states can be confined in this graphene quantum blisters (GQB) by applying a global electrostatic bias. We scrutinize the electronic properties of these confined states under the variation of interlayer bias, coupling, and blister's size. The spectra display strong anti-crossings due to the coupling of the confined states on upper and lower layers inside the blister. These spectra are layer localized where the respective confined states reside on either layer or equally distributed. For finite angular momentum, this layer localization can be at the edge of the blister and corresponds to degenerate modes of opposite momenta. Furthermore, the energy levels in GQB exhibit electron-hole symmetry that is sensitive to the electrostatic bias. Finally, we demonstrate that confinement in GQB persists even in the presence of a variation in the inter-layer coupling.