Advanced Quantum Mechanics II PHYS 40202

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Advanced Quantum Mechanics 2

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6.4Graphene
A prime example of a non-fundamental system that can be described by a Dirac equation is graphene. A material important enough to give the Nobel
price in 2010 to Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov. Let me explain the basics.

6.4.1Tight binding model

figure Figures/Real_graphene.jpg

Figure 6.3Graphene: Left--image of graphene in TEM by Berkeleys TEAM05. Right--the standard honeycomb lattice of graphene, with atoms
coloured according to the sublattice they occur on.
Graphene is the technical term used for a structure made of one (sometimes a few ) layer of a tw o-dimensional sheet of carbon, see Fig. 6.3
for a sketch and TEM image.

Figure 6.4Graphene. Left--the standard honeycomb lattice of graphene, with the unit cell with basic lattice vectors. Right--the reciprocal lattice.
There is a very natural w ay to describe the lattice; as w e can see in Fig. 6.4 w e have tw o natural sublattices; the lattice vectors

connect all states in one sublattice )(w hich is triangular). The reciprocal lattice vectors have the form

Each point in one sublattice is linked by three nearest-neighbour vectors to the other sublattice,

The simplest w ay to model a system like graphene, is to model the overlap of free electrons--in an almost chemical w ay. The underlying
technique is called the tight binding (LCAO) method [14]. [M] W e assume that an individual electron lives in a superposition of the same orbits over all
the atomic sites

w here sums over all the atoms, but can only depend on an index that labels atoms that are inequivalent under lattice symmetries
(translation/rotation). For the case of graphene, w e can split the normal lattice into tw o inequivalent sublattices and , see Fig. 6.4 ,
corresponding to the tw o atoms in a primitive unit cell. The energy expectation value for states w ith momentum is then, in the tight-binding
approximation,

w here is the sublattice sum, and here enumerates the atoms of type that couple to .
W e assume only nearest neighbour coupling. Each atom has three nearest neighbours a distance
sublattice, but otherw ise equivalent, and thus

aw ay w hich all lie on the other

W e now minimise the energy w .r.t. the coefficients , and get an effective tw o-by-tw o Hamiltonian for the determination of the coefficients
,

w here

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labels the three nearest neighbours. Since the diagonals are equal, w e may as w ell choose them

, setting the zero of energy,

Since all the three neighbour sites are completely equivalent, the coupling (tight-binding) betw een the point w e are interested in and the
neighbours is ruled by one parameter w hich is usually called ,

W e can now find the tw o eigenenergies of the matrix ( ) as a function of

These energies are show as a function of in Fig. 6.5 .

figure Figures/graphene_TB.png

Figure 6.5The Fermi energy of graphene in a nearest neighbour tight-binding model

6.4.2Dirac points--Dirac equation

Since the normal number of electrons is such that the energy states are half-filled, all states in the low er surface are filled. Something strange
happens in the vicinity of the point w here the energy is degenerate (see Fig. 6.5 ). It takes no energy at all to hop betw een the surfaces at the
point; thus the states nearby describe the low -energy excitations, the dynamics of electrons and holes. The easiest w ay to find how this happens is
to solve for
, i.e., the tight-binding Hamiltonian is diagonal. A little thought show s that at that point
must be real, and w e easily
identify the six solutions:

Of these six, there are only tw o inequivalent ones (others can be reached by the reciprocal lattice vectors ). Any tw o adjacent points on the
hexagon can be used; w e choose
.
It is interesting to look at the behaviour of the interaction near those points; w rite
w ith small. W e find

W e get tw o tw o-by-tw o Hamiltonians of the form

Combining the tw o corresponding w ave functions

(each length 2) at a single energy into a single length 4 vector, rotating
and using
w e get the equation

w hich is the Dirac equation for massless particles in 2 dimensions, once w e replace by the Fermi velocity
Since the particles are massless, the logical basis to use is the helicity basis discussed above.

6.4.3Klein paradox and graphene

Since it is described by a massless Dirac equation, the question about the behaviour under scattering has been asked.
6.4.3.1Simple potential barrier
The easiest thing to do is to consider a simple potential barrier of height
and w idth
. Using the matching technique used above w e can show
that for a w ave impinging in the perpendicular direction on the barrier the coefficient of the reflected and transmitted w ave function is
Undefined control sequence \ensuremath

w here

W e can thus either have

both real or both purely imaginary. In both cases
goes to zero, as w e expect in graphene.

. W e see that the transmission goes to 1 as the mass

Figure 6.6The tunnelling and reflection probability for a Dirac particle impinging on a barrier of height . The energy is
, and
is 1 on
the left and
on the right (all expressed in the same arbitrary units). The red line shows the transmission, the blue line the reflection. The grey
energy band is where the momentum inside the barrier is imaginary.
6.4.3.2Picture of general result
In general w e can also have scattering under an oblique angle; this has been evaluated in the literature [N] (see also example sheet). For a massless
particle w e get the picture

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figure Figures/Kats.png

Figure 6.7The reflection coefficient as a function of angle and energy....

6.4.3.3Experimental data
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