Electronic properties of stacking faults in Bernal graphite

TL;DR

This study models the electronic states at stacking faults in Bernal graphite, revealing unique 2D electron bands with distinctive Fermi surfaces and quantum oscillation signatures, which can be experimentally detected.

Contribution

It provides a detailed tight-binding analysis of stacking fault states in Bernal graphite, linking their properties to observable quantum transport phenomena.

Findings

Fault-bound bands resemble rhombohedral graphene trilayer

Fermi surface consists of three hole-like pockets with Dirac points

Distinct quantum oscillation frequencies differentiate fault states from bulk graphite

Abstract

Using the tight-binding model of graphite, incorporating all Slonczewski-Weiss-McClure parameters, we compute the spectrum of two-dimensional states of electrons bound to a stacking fault in Bernal graphite. We find that those bands retain characteristic features of the low-energy bands of a rhombohedral graphene trilayer, which actually represents the lattice structure the fault. Based on the self-consistent analysis of charge and potential distribution across the fault layers, we determine the shape of the Fermi contour for the 2D band, which has the form of three pockets with a hole-like conic dispersion and Dirac points above the Fermi level. The computed frequency of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations and the cyclotron mass of the fault-bound charge carriers (at the Fermi level) are sufficiently different from the corresponding bulk values in graphite, making such stacking faults identifiable by quantum transport and cyclotron resonance measurements.