Spectroscopic Signatures of Massless Gap Opening in Graphene

Abstract

Gap opening in graphene is usually discussed in terms of a semiconducting-like spectrum, where the appearance of a finite gap at the Dirac point is accompanied by a finite mass for the fermions. In this Letter we propose a gap scenario from graphene which preserves the massless characters of the carriers. This approach explains recent spectroscopic measurements carried out in epitaxially-grown graphene, ranging from photoemission to optical transmission.