New generation of massless dirac fermions in graphene under external periodic potentials

Abstract

We show that new massless Dirac fermions are generated when a slowly varying periodic potential is applied to graphene. These quasiparticles, generated near the supercell Brillouin zone boundaries with anisotropic group velocity, are different from the original massless Dirac fermions. The quasiparticle wave vector (measured from the new Dirac point), the generalized pseudospin vector, and the group velocity are not collinear. We further show that with an appropriate periodic potential of triangular symmetry, there exists an energy window over which the only available states are these quasiparticles, thus providing a good system to probe experimentally the new massless Dirac fermions. The required parameters of external potentials are within the realm of laboratory conditions. © 2008 The American Physical Society.