Mass distortions and edge modes in graphene armchair nanoribbons

Abstract

We investigate, in the framework of the macroscopic Dirac model, the spectrum, charge density, and conductivity of metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons in the presence of different mass terms. We reveal the conditions and symmetries governing the existence of edge modes in the system. Depending on the mass terms present, they are exponentially localized gapless or gapped modes. The latter situation is realized, in particular, for a full Kekulé distortion. For this case, we calculate the mean charge and conductivity of the ribbon, and derive the traces of the presence of edge modes suitable for experimental verification.