Reverse strain-induced snake states in graphene nanoribbons

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how reverse strain in graphene nanoribbons creates snake states at the interface of pseudo-magnetic fields, enabling potential valley current applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel strain configuration in graphene nanoribbons that induces opposite pseudo-magnetic fields and explores the resulting snake states and valley current phenomena.

Findings

Snake states occur at the interface of reverse strain regions.

The snake states are robust and can be theoretically confirmed.

Pure valley currents can be realized in the proposed device.

Abstract

Strain can tailor the band structures and properties of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with the well-known emergent pseudo-magnetic fields and the corresponding pseudo-Landau levels (pLLs). We design one type of the zigzag GNR (ZGNR) with reverse strains, producing pseudo-magnetic fields with opposite signs in the lower and upper half planes. Therefore, electrons propagate along the interface as "snake states", experiencing opposite Lorentz forces as they cross the zero field border line. By using the Landauer-Buttiker formalism combined with the nonequilibrium Green's function method, the existence and robustness of the reverse strain-induced snake states are further studied. Furthermore, the realization of long-thought pure valley currents in monolayer graphene systems is also proposed in our device.