Energy gap tuning in graphene on hexagonal boron nitride bilayer system

Abstract

We use a tight binding approach and density functional theory calculations to study the band structure of graphene/hexagonal boron nitride bilayer system in the most stable configuration. We show that an electric field applied in the direction perpendicular to the layers significantly modifies the electronic structure of the whole system, including shifts, anticrossing and other deformations of bands, which can allow to control the value of the energy gap. It is shown that band structure of biased system may be tailored for specific requirements of nanoelectronics applications. The carriers' mobilities are expected to be higher than in the bilayer graphene devices.

Stability of boron nitride bilayers: Ground-state energies, interlayer distances, and tight-binding description

“…The number we have obtained for t is different from the one (t=2.79 eV) obtained in Ref. 11 and also from that obtained by the same group in a more recent work (t=2.28 eV). 19 In these two works the fitting was done only near de K-point, and considering both valence and conduction bands, which is, most likely, the reason for the discrepancy between ours and the latter result 19 by those authors.…”

Resonant and nondissipative tunneling in independently contacted graphene structures

“…8 and this result is in agreement with the tight-binding model. [15] More accurate estimates for T and T s should be based on additional structural measurements. The simplified electrostatics description, given by Eq.…”

“…These layers are connected through the spinor φ described the single BN-layer. Within the tight-binding approach, [15] the eigenstate of energy E is determined by the problem written through the 6 × 6 Hamiltonian BNĥ BN G . Thus, we arrive to the Hamiltonian (1) with the renormalization contributions τ t,b included toĥ G t,b ; these corrections are negligible for the weak tunneling regime.…”

Electronic Properties of Graphene/h-BN Bilayer Superlattices

“…[12][13][14] The electronic properties of graphene on h-BN substrate systems have been also investigated theoretically. [15][16][17] The tunability of the electronic properties of multilayer systems composed of graphene and h-BN achieved by controlling stacking sequences, strains, and external electric fields [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] have been also discussed. The large number of studies indicates the importance of graphene/h-BN heterostructures.…”