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Phys. Rev. B 78, 155413 (2008) [6 pages]

Quantum blockade and loop currents in graphene with topological defects

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Yanyang Zhang1,2, Jiang-Ping Hu3, B. A. Bernevig4, X. R. Wang2, X. C. Xie5,1, and W. M. Liu1
1Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, People’s Republic of China
2Physics Department, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong SAR, China
3Department of Physics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
4Princeton Center for Theoretical Physics and Department of Physics, Jadwin Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
5Department of Physics, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078, USA

Received 2 July 2008; revised 16 July 2008; published 9 October 2008

We investigate the effect of topological defects on the transport properties of a narrow ballistic ribbon of graphene with zigzag edges. Our results show that the longitudinal conductance vanishes at several discrete Fermi energies where the system develops loop orbital electric currents with certain chirality. The chirality depends on the direction of the applied bias voltage and the sign of the local curvature created by the topological defects. This quantum localization phenomenon provides a way to generate a magnetic moment by an external electric field, which can prove useful in nanotronics.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.155413
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.78.155413
PACS:
73.20.Fz, 72.10.Fk, 72.15.Rn, 73.20.At
 
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