Electronic structure of spontaneously strained graphene on hexagonal boron nitride

Abstract

Hexagonal boron nitride substrates have been shown to dramatically improve the electric properties of graphene. Recently, it has been observed that when the two honeycomb crystals are close to perfect alignment, strong lattice distortions develop in graphene due to the moir\'e adhesion landscape. Simultaneously, a gap opens at the Dirac point. Here, we derive a simple low-energy electronic model for graphene aligned with the substrate, taking into account spontaneous strains at equilibrium and pseudogauge fields. We carry out a detailed characterization of the modified band structure, gap, local and global density of states, and band topology in terms of physical parameters. We show that the overall electronic structure is strongly modified by the spontaneous strains.