Dirac points for the honeycomb lattice with impenetrable obstacles

TL;DR

This paper investigates the existence and properties of Dirac points in a honeycomb lattice with periodic impenetrable obstacles, providing both theoretical proofs and quantitative analysis of eigenvalues and dispersion slopes.

Contribution

It establishes the existence of Dirac points for both Dirichlet and Neumann problems in the honeycomb lattice with obstacles, and analyzes their eigenvalues and dispersion slopes.

Findings

Dirac points exist at band surface crossings for both eigenvalue problems.

Eigenvalues are near singular frequencies related to the Green's function.

Slopes of dispersion surfaces are inversely proportional to eigenvalues.

Abstract

This work is concerned with the Dirac points for the honeycomb lattice with impenetrable obstacles arranged periodically in a homogeneous medium. We consider both the Dirichlet and Neumann eigenvalue problems and prove the existence of Dirac points for both eigenvalue problems at crossing of the lower band surfaces as well as higher band surfaces. Furthermore, we perform quantitative analysis for the eigenvalues and the slopes of two conical dispersion surfaces near each Dirac point based on a combination of the layer potential technique and asymptotic analysis. It is shown that the eigenvalues are in the neighborhood of the singular frequencies associated with the Green's function for the honeycomb lattice, and the slopes of the dispersion surfaces are reciprocal to the eigenvalues.