Abstract
We present a continuum theory of graphene, treating on an equal footing both the homogeneous Cauchy-Born (CB) deformation and the microscopic degrees of freedom associated with the two sublattices. While our theory recovers all extant results from homogeneous continuum theory, the Dirac-Weyl equation is found to be augmented by new pseudogauge and chiral fields fundamentally different from those that result from homogeneous deformation. We elucidate three striking electronic consequences: (i) non-CB deformations allow for the transport of valley-polarized charge over arbitrarily long distances, e.g., along a designed ridge; (ii) the triaxial deformations required to generate an approximately uniform magnetic field are unnecessary with non-CB deformation; and finally (iii) the vanishing of the effects of a one-dimensional corrugation seen in ab initio calculation upon lattice relaxation is explained as a compensation of CB and non-CB deformation.
1 More- Received 23 October 2018
- Revised 10 January 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.99.125407
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