Veselago focusing of anisotropic massless Dirac fermions

Shu-Hui Zhang, Wen Yang, and F. M. Peeters
Phys. Rev. B 97, 205437 – Published 22 May 2018

Abstract

Massless Dirac fermions (MDFs) emerge as quasiparticles in various novel materials such as graphene and topological insulators, and they exhibit several intriguing properties, of which Veselago focusing is an outstanding example with a lot of possible applications. However, up to now Veselago focusing merely occurred in p-n junction devices based on the isotropic MDF, which lacks the tunability needed for realistic applications. Here, motivated by the emergence of novel Dirac materials, we investigate the propagation behaviors of anisotropic MDFs in such a p-n junction structure. By projecting the Hamiltonian of the anisotropic MDF to that of the isotropic MDF and deriving an exact analytical expression for the propagator, precise Veselago focusing is demonstrated without the need for mirror symmetry of the electron source and its focusing image. We show a tunable focusing position that can be used in a device to probe masked atom-scale defects. This study provides an innovative concept to realize Veselago focusing relevant for potential applications, and it paves the way for the design of novel electron optics devices by exploiting the anisotropic MDF.

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  • Received 10 December 2017
  • Revised 9 May 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.205437

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Shu-Hui Zhang1,*, Wen Yang2,†, and F. M. Peeters3,‡

  • 1College of Science, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China
  • 2Beijing Computational Science Research Center, Beijing 100193, China
  • 3Department of Physics, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020 Antwerpen, Belgium

  • *shuhuizhang@mail.buct.edu.cn
  • wenyang@csrc.ac.cn
  • francois.peeters@uantwerpen.be

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 20 — 15 May 2018

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