Solitons induced by an in-plane magnetic field in rhombohedral multilayer graphene

Abstract

We model the influence of an in-plane magnetic field on the orbital motion of electrons in rhombohedral graphene multilayers. For zero field, the low-energy band structure includes a pair of flat bands near zero energy which are localized on the surface layers of a finite thin film. For finite field, we find that the zero-energy bands persist and that level bifurcations occur at energies determined by the component of the in-plane wave vector $q$ that is parallel to the external field. The occurrence of level bifurcations is explained by invoking semiclassical quantization of the zero field Fermi surface of rhombohedral graphite. We find parameter regions with a single isoenergetic contour of Berry phase zero corresponding to a conventional Landau level spectrum and regions with two isoenergetic contours, each of Berry phase $\pi$, corresponding to a Dirac-like spectrum of levels. We write down an analogous one-dimensional tight-binding model and relate the persistence of the zero-energy bands in large magnetic fields to a soliton texture supporting zero-energy states in the Su-Schreiffer-Heeger model. We show that different states contributing to the zero-energy flat bands in rhombohedral graphene multilayers in a large field, as determined by the wave vector $q$, are localized on different bulk layers of the system, not just the surfaces.