Quantum transport across normal-superlattice-normal graphene junctions: Fabry-Pérot interference, Hofstadter butterfly, and supersnake states
Abstract
Electrostatic modulation of graphene provides a tunable route to engineering miniband structures. We perform quantum transport simulations on a gate-defined graphene superlattice junction, formed by confining a two-dimensional superlattice graphene (SGr) region between two normal graphene (NGr) regions. In the low-field regime at low carrier densities, robust Fabry-Pérot interference fringes emerge even in the unipolar regime due to Fermi-velocity renormalization in the SGr region. At stronger magnetic fields but only up to 3 T, the conductance map clearly reveals the Hofstadter butterfly spectrum. At intermediate fields, our finite-width transport simulations reveal a new type of snake state, the supersnake state, composed of alternating anomalous cyclotron arcs on the SGr side and conventional semicircular arcs on the NGr side, forming a weaving trajectory along the junction. The resulting conductance oscillations agree well with geometrical conditions derived from semiclassical cyclotron orbits. Our results demonstrate that gate-defined NGr-SGr-NGr junctions provide a versatile platform hosting multiple transport regimes within a single device architecture and can be generalized to other types of superlattices not restricted to graphene.
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BibTeX
@misc{hsu2026quantum,
title = {{Quantum transport across normal-superlattice-normal graphene junctions: Fabry-Pérot interference, Hofstadter butterfly, and supersnake states}},
author = {Che-Pin Hsu and Alina Mreńca-Kolasińska and Aitor Garcia-Ruiz and Szu-Chao Chen and Denis Kochan and Klaus Richter and Ming-Hao Liu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.19627},
eprint = {2609.19627},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19627},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Quantum transport across normal-superlattice-normal graphene junctions: Fabry-Pérot interference, Hofstadter butterfly, and supersnake states
AU - Che-Pin Hsu
AU - Alina Mreńca-Kolasińska
AU - Aitor Garcia-Ruiz
AU - Szu-Chao Chen
AU - Denis Kochan
AU - Klaus Richter
AU - Ming-Hao Liu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.19627
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.19627
AB - Electrostatic modulation of graphene provides a tunable route to engineering miniband structures. We perform quantum transport simulations on a gate-defined graphene superlattice junction, formed by confining a two-dimensional superlattice graphene (SGr) region between two normal graphene (NGr) regions. In the low-field regime at low carrier densities, robust Fabry-Pérot interference fringes emerge even in the unipolar regime due to Fermi-velocity renormalization in the SGr region. At stronger magnetic fields but only up to 3 T, the conductance map clearly reveals the Hofstadter butterfly spectrum. At intermediate fields, our finite-width transport simulations reveal a new type of snake state, the supersnake state, composed of alternating anomalous cyclotron arcs on the SGr side and conventional semicircular arcs on the NGr side, forming a weaving trajectory along the junction. The resulting conductance oscillations agree well with geometrical conditions derived from semiclassical cyclotron orbits. Our results demonstrate that gate-defined NGr-SGr-NGr junctions provide a versatile platform hosting multiple transport regimes within a single device architecture and can be generalized to other types of superlattices not restricted to graphene.
ER -