Topologically protected gap states and resonances in gated trilayer graphene

TL;DR

This paper investigates topologically protected gap states in gated trilayer graphene, showing how stacking order changes induce valley Chern number variations, leading to gapless states and resonances.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of topologically protected gapless states and resonances due to stacking order transitions in gated trilayer graphene.

Findings

Changing stacking order from ABC to CBA creates gapless states.

Stacking boundary changes induce valley Chern number variations.

Topological resonances appear at certain gate voltages.

Abstract

Gated trilayer graphene exhibits energy gap in its most stable ABC stacking. Here we show that when the stacking order changes from ABC to CBA, three gapless states appear in each valley. The states are topologically protected and their number is related to the change of the valley Chern number across the stacking boundary. The stacking change is achieved by corrugation or delamination in the top and bottom layers, which simultaneously yields two AB/BA stacking domain walls in the pairs of adjacent layers (in bilayers). This in turn causes that for some gate voltages two pairs of topological resonances appear additionally in the conduction and valence band continua.