摘要

We present an ab initio analysis of polarization of multilayer graphene systems under applied electric fields. The effects of applied electric fields are calculated using a Berry phase approach within a plane-wave density functional formalism. We have determined polarizability values for graphene films and carbon nanotubes and found that the polarizability of graphene films follows a linear relationship with the number of layers. We also examined changes in the induced charge distribution as a function of graphene layers. We focus, in particular, on the bilayer graphene system. Under applied electric fields, we found the Mexican hat band structure near the K point reported by previous groups. We found that the induced charge primarily accumulated on the B sublattice sites. This observation is supported by additional calculations with a tight-binding Green's function model. By examining the local density of states at the Fermi energy, we found a high density of states at the B sites at the Fermi energy. In contrast, coupling between A sites in neighboring graphene layers leads to negligible density of states at the Fermi level. This high density of states at the B sites results in greater induced charge under applied electric fields. This scenario of preferential induced charge on the B sublattice sites under applied electric fields could impact the stability of atoms and molecules absorbed on bilayer graphene.

  • 出版日期2008-5