Ballistic charge transport in chiral-symmetric few-layer graphene

¹  School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University - Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK, EU
²  DFG Center for Functional Nanostructures, Universität Karlsruhe - 76128 Karlsruhe, Germany, EU

Corresponding authors: wh60@hw.ac.uk M.Titov@hw.ac.uk

Received: 1 October 2009
Accepted: 15 February 2010

Abstract

A transfer matrix approach to study ballistic charge transport in few-layer graphene with chiral-symmetric stacking configurations is developed. We demonstrate that the chiral symmetry justifies a non-Abelian gauge transformation at the spectral degeneracy point (zero energy). This transformation proves the equivalence of zero-energy transport properties of the multilayer to those of the system of uncoupled monolayers. Similar transformation can be applied in order to gauge away an arbitrary magnetic field, weak strain, and hopping disorder in the bulk of the sample. Finally, we calculate the full-counting statistics at arbitrary energy for different stacking configurations. The predicted gate-voltage dependence of conductance and noise can be measured in clean multilayer samples with generic metallic leads.