Electronic structures of single- and multi-layer epitaxial graphene on SiC (0001)

The electronic structures of single- and multi-layered epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide (0001) surface are studied theoretically. To calculate energy bands of the systems, we construct the simple Hamiltonian with tight-binding approximations. We confirm that the present simple model do give identical electronic structure to the previous ab-initio study on the single layer case [1]. We extend the model up to four epitaxial graphene layers to explain various interesting experimental findings. The roles of the coupling between graphenes and the buffer layer, and their large scale reconstructions to the electronic structures are also investigated. [1] S. Kim, J. Ihm, H. J. Choi, Y.-W. Son, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 176802 (2008).