We show that a coherent picture of the dc conductivity of monolayer and bilayer graphene at finite electronic densities emerges upon considering that strong short-range potentials are the main source of scattering in these two systems. The origin of the strong short-range potentials may lie in adsorbed hydrocarbons at the surface of graphene. The equivalence among results based on the partial-wave description of scattering, the Lippmann-Schwinger equation, and the $T$-matrix approach is established. Scattering due to resonant impurities close to the neutrality point is investigated via a numerical computation of the Kubo formula using a kernel polynomial method. We find that relevant adsorbate species originate impurity bands in monolayer and bilayer graphene close to the Dirac point. In the midgap region, a plateau of minimum conductivity of about $e^2/h$ (per layer) is induced by the resonant disorder. In bilayer graphene, a large adsorbate concentration can develop an energy gap between midgap and high-energy states. As a consequence, the conductivity plateau is supressed near the edges and a “conductivity gap” takes place. Finally, a scattering formalism for electrons in biased bilayer graphene, taking into account the degeneracy of the spectrum, is developed and the dc conductivity of that system is studied.

• Received 25 October 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.83.165402