Confinement and edge effects on atomic collapse in graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

Atomic collapse in graphene nanoribbons behaves in a fundamentally different way as compared to monolayer graphene, due to the presence of multiple energy bands and the effect of edges. For armchair nanoribbons we find that bound states gradually transform into atomic collapse states with increasing impurity charge. This is very different in zig-zag nanoribbons where multiple quasi-one-dimensional \emph{bound states} are found that originates from the zero energy zig-zag edge states. They are a consequence of the flat band and the electron distribution of these bound states exhibits two peaks. The lowest energy edge state transforms from a bound state into an atomic collapse resonance and shows a distinct relocalization from the edge to the impurity position with increasing impurity charge.