2014/05/06 by Hamed Koochaki Kelardeh, Kelardeh, Hamed Koochaki, Vadym Apalkov +3 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1405.1141
11 pages, 9 figures
arxiv created 2014/08/16 · arxiv updated 2014/08/19
We find theoretically energy spectrum of a graphene monolayer in a strong constant electric field using a tight-binding model. Within a single band, we find quantized equidistant energy levels (Wannier-Stark ladder), separated by the Bloch frequency. Singular interband coupling results in mixing of the states of different bands and anticrossing of corresponding levels, which is described analytically near Dirac points and is related to the Pancharatnam-Berry phase. The rate of interband tunneling, which is proportional to the anticrossing gaps in the spectrum, is only inversely proportional to the tunneling distance, in a sharp contrast to conventional solids where this dependence is exponential. This singularity will have major consequences for graphene behavior in strong ultrafast optical fields, in particular, leading to non-adiabaticity of electron excitation dynamics.