Adiabatic pumping driven by moving kink and quantum standard ampere in buckled graphene nanoribbon

Abstract

A quantum pump in buckled graphene ribbon with armchair edges is discussed numerically. By solving the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and performing the computer simulation of quantum transport we find that a kink adiabatically moving along the metallic ribbon results in highly-efficient pumping, with a charge per kink transition close to the maximal value determined by the Fermi velocity in graphene. Remarkably, insulating nanoribbon show the quantized value of a charge per kink (2e) in relatively wide range of the system parameters, providing a promising candidate for the quantum standard ampere. We attribute it to the presence of a localized electronic state, moving together with a kink, whose energy lies within the ribbon energy gap.