Optical conductivity of a commensurate graphene-topological insulator heterostructure

Matthew Sanderson, Sunchao Huang, Qiaoliang Bao, Chao Zhang

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5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The optical conductivity of a heterostructure formed by a commensurate stacking of graphene and a topological insulator (TI) is investigated using the Kubo formalism. Both the intra- and interband AC conductivities are found to be sensitive to the graphene-TI coupling. The direct interband transition in graphene which is the origin of the universal conductance is forbidden due to the topological nature is the coupling. Furthermore, the graphene-TI coupling gives rise to additional broken symmetries, resulting in both the inter- and intraband conductivity to be reduced in the graphene-TI heterostructure. By varying the Fermi energy of the heterostructure, the band that gives the largest contribution changes, which in turn affects the overall electronic transport.

Original languageEnglish
Article number385301
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Physics D: Applied Physics
Volume50
Issue number38
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Sept 2017

Keywords

  • grapheme
  • optical conductivity
  • topological insulator

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