Confined Electrons in Effective Plane Fractals

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that applying an external electric field to certain lattice structures can create effective fractal geometries with fractional dimensions, enabling electron confinement similar to real fractals like the Sierpinski carpet.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to generate effective fractal geometries in electronic systems using external fields on square and honeycomb lattices, especially highlighting graphene-like systems.

Findings

Electrons can be confined in fractional dimensions with small external fields.

Hexagonal lattices require less field to confine electrons compared to square lattices.

Graphene-like systems are promising platforms for realizing effective fractal geometries.

Abstract

As an emerging complex two-dimensional structure, plane fractal has attracted much attention due to its novel dimension-related physical properties. In this paper, we check the feasibility to create an effective Sierpinski carpet (SC), a plane fractal with Hausdorff dimension intermediate between one and two, by applying an external electric field to a square or a honeycomb lattice. The electric field forms a fractal geometry but the atomic structure of the underlying lattice remains the same. By calculating and comparing various electronic properties, we find parts of the electrons can be confined effectively in a fractional dimension with a relatively small field, and representing properties very close to these in a real fractal. In particular, compared to the square lattice, the external field required to effectively confine the electron is smaller in the hexagonal lattice, suggesting that a graphene-like system will be an ideal platform to construct an effective SC experimentally. Our work paves a new way to build fractals from a top-down perspective, and can motivate more studies of fractional dimensions in real systems.