Transmission across a bilayer graphene region

Abstract

The transmission across a graphene bilayer region is calculated for two different types of connections to monolayer leads. A transfer matrix algorithm based on a tight binding model is developed to obtain the ballistic transmission beyond linear response. The two configurations are found to behave similarly when no gate voltage is applied. For a finite gate voltage, both develop a conductance gap characteristic of a biased bilayer, but only one shows a pronounced conductance step at the gap edge. A gate voltage domain wall applied to the bilayer region renders the conductance of the two configurations similar. For a microstructure consisting of equally spaced domain walls, we find a high sensitivity to the domain size. This is attributed to the presence of topologically protected in-gap states localized at domain walls, which hybridize as the domain size becomes of the order of their confining scale. Our results show that transmission through a bilayer region can be manipulated by a gate voltage in ways not previously anticipated.