Andreev reflection in bilayer graphene.pdf

a r X i v : c o n d - m a t / 0 7 0 1 0 4 5 v 3 [ c o n d - m a t .m e s - h a l l ] 1 6 A p r 2 0 0 7 Andreev reflection in bilayer graphene T. Ludwig Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden, P.O. Box 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands (Dated: Mar 18, 2007) We consider the differential conductance of a normal-superconductor junction in clean bilayer graphene in the framework of the Dirac-Bogoliubov-de Gennes equation. A remarkable suppression of the differential conductance at voltages just below the superconducting gap is found. This can be understood in terms of the spinor structures of the electron and hole excitations, in particular, the reflected valence-band hole being orthogonal to the incoming electron at normal incidence. PACS numbers: 74.45.+c, 73.23.-b, 74.50.+r, 74.78.Na I. INTRODUCTION Graphene, with its Dirac-like low-lying excitations, displays a number of unusual transport properties1,2,3. These result from the pseudospin 1/2 of the low-lying modes, their linear dispersion, and the vanishing den- sity of states at the Dirac point. The peculiarity that graphene retains a finite conductivity down to the Dirac point4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 allows us to explore unusual regimes. Recently normal-superconductor interfaces in graphene have been studied12,13,14,15,16,17,18, where the possibility of the Fermi energy being smaller than the superconduct- ing gap leads to a number of new phenomena based on specular12 Andreev reflection19. In contrast to the monolayer, the low-lying excita- tions of bilayer graphene are gapless massive chiral fermions with pseudospin 1.20,21,22,23 This does not lead to such dramatic effects as the absence of backscatter- ing in the monolayer,24,25,26,27 which results, e.g., in Klein tunneling28 or perfect electron-hole conversion at a normal-superconductor (NS) interface at normal inci- dence and all energies below the superconducting gap12. On the contrary, the pseudospin 1 of the bilayer modes is often difficult to connect w