Eur. Phys. J. B (2014) 87: 216
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2014-50434-4

Regular Article

Ratchet effect in graphene with trigonal clusters

¹ Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia
² St. Petersburg Academic University - Nanotechnology Research and Education Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia

^a e-mail: kon@mail.ioffe.ru

Received: 27 June 2014
Received in final form: 5 August 2014
Published online: 23 September 2014

Abstract

In this study, we explore the ratchet effect in graphene with artificial, triangular scatterers from a theoretical standpoint. It is demonstrated that the skew scattering of carriers by such coherently oriented defects results in the ratchet effect in graphene, i.e., in a direct current under the action of an oscillating electric field. Scattering on various types of defects exhibiting threefold symmetry is considered in this paper: scattering on a cluster in the shape of a solid triangle in the classical and quantum mechanical limits, and scattering on three-point defects placed at the corners of a triangle. The DC current is calculated for a classical range of oscillating field frequencies.