Notes on the minimal longitudinal dc conductivity of perfect bilayer graphene

TL;DR

This paper calculates the minimal longitudinal conductivity of perfect bilayer graphene using two methods, finding values close to experimental results and discussing the physical origin related to disorder and Zitterbewegung.

Contribution

It extends existing methods for Dirac fermion gases to compute minimal conductivity in bilayer graphene, providing new theoretical values and insights.

Findings

Calculated minimal conductivity for bilayer graphene: (4J/π) e^2/h

Results are consistent with some experimental data

Identified disorder and Zitterbewegung as physical origins

Abstract

We calculated the minimal longitudinal conductivity in prefect single and bilayer graphene by extending the two methods developed for Dirac fermion gas by A. W. W. Ludwig et al. in Phys. Rev. B {\bf 50}, 7526 (1994). Using the Kubo formula which was originally applied for spintronic systems we obtain $\sigma^{\text min}_{xx}= (J \pi /2) e^2/h$ while from the other formula used in the above mentioned work we find $\bar{\sigma}^{\text min}_{xx}= (4J/\pi) e^2/h$, where J=1 for single layer and J=2 for bilayer graphene. The two universal values are different although they are numerically close to each other. Our two results are in the same order of magnitude as that of experiments and for single layer case one of our result agrees many earlier theoretical predictions. However, for bilayer graphene only two studies are known with predictions for the minimal conductivity different from our calculated values. Similarly to the single layer case, the physical origin of the minimal conductivity in bilayer graphene is also rooted back to the intrinsic disorder induced by the Zitterbewegung which is related to the trembling motion of the electron.