Anisotropy of graphite optical conductivity

Abstract

The graphite conductivity is evaluated for frequencies between 0.1 eV, the energy of the order of the electron-hole overlap, and 1.5 eV, the electron nearest hopping energy. The in-plane conductivity per single atomic sheet is close to the universal graphene conductivity $e^2/4\hbar$ and, however, contains a singularity conditioned by peculiarities of the electron dispersion. The conductivity is less in the $c-$direction by the factor of the order of 0.01 governed by electron hopping in this direction.