Skip to main content
Log in

Zitterbewegung, chirality, and minimal conductivity in graphene

  • Rapid Note
  • Published:
The European Physical Journal B - Condensed Matter and Complex Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract.

It has been recently demonstrated experimentally that graphene, or single-layer carbon, is a gapless semiconductor with massless Dirac energy spectrum. A finite conductivity per channel of order of e2/h in the limit of zero temperature and zero charge carrier density is one of the striking features of this system. Here we analyze this peculiarity based on the Kubo and Landauer formulas. The appearance of a finite conductivity without scattering is shown to be a characteristic property of Dirac chiral fermions in two dimensions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • K.S. Novoselov, A.K. Geim, S.V. Morozov, D. Jiang, Y. Zhang, S.V. Dubonos, I.V. Grigorieva, A.A. Firsov, Science 306, 666 (2004); K.S. Novoselov, D. Jiang, F. Schedin, T.J. Booth, V.V. Khotkevich, S.M. Morozov, A.K. Geim, PNAS 102, 10451 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • K.S. Novoselov, A.K. Geim, S.V. Morozov, D. Jiang, M.I. Katsnelson, I.V. Grigorieva, S.V. Dubonos, A.A. Firsov, Nature 438, 197 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Y. Zhang, Y.-W. Tan, H.L. Stormer, P. Kim, Nature 438, 201 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • V.P. Gusynin, S.G. Sharapov, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 146801 (2005)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • A.H. Castro Neto, F. Guinea, N.M.R. Peres, e-print arXiv:cond-mat/0509709

  • E. Fradkin, Phys. Rev. B 33, 3263 (1986)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • P.A. Lee, Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 1887 (1993)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • A.W.W. Ludwig, M.P.A. Fisher, R. Shankar, G. Grinstein, Phys. Rev. B 50, 7526 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • A.A. Nersesyan, A.M. Tsvelik, F. Wenger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 2628 (1994)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • K. Ziegler, Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 3113 (1998)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • N.H. Shon, T. Ando, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 67, 2421 (1998)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • E.V. Gorbar, V.P. Gusynin, V.A. Miransky, I.A. Shovkovy, Phys. Rev. B 66, 045108 (2002)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • X. Yang, C. Nayak, Phys. Rev. B 65, 064523 (2002)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • C.W.J. Beenakker, H. van Houten, Solid State Phys. 44, 1 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • A.A. Abrikosov, Phys. Rev. B 58, 2788 (1998)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • V.B. Berestetskii, E.M. Lifshitz, L.P. Pitaevskii, Relativistic Quantum Theory, Vol. 1 (Pergamon, Oxford etc., 1971)

  • A.S. Davydov, Quantum Mechanics (Pergamon, Oxford etc., 1976)

  • G. Salesi, E. Recami, Found. Phys. Lett. 10, 533 (1997)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • D.N. Zubarev, Nonequilibrium Statistical Thermodynamics (Consultants Bureau, New York, 1974)

  • K.S. Novoselov, E. McCann, S.V. Morozov, V.I. Falko, M.I. Katsnelson, U. Zeitler, D. Jiang, F. Schedin, A.K. Geim, Nature Phys. 2, 177 (2006)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • E. McCann, V.I. Falko, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 086805 (2006)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • W. Tian, S. Datta, Phys. Rev. B 49, 5097 (1994).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • L. Chico, L.X. Benedict, S.G. Louie, M.L. Cohen, Phys. Rev. B 54, 2600 (1996)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. I. Katsnelson.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Katsnelson, M. Zitterbewegung, chirality, and minimal conductivity in graphene. Eur. Phys. J. B 51, 157–160 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00203-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00203-1

PACS.

Navigation