Bandgap opening of ferric chloride intercalated graphene by applying small electric field

Graphene has exceptional properties with great promise for various applications. However, pristine graphene cannot be used in nano-electronics because it lacks a gap in energy dispersion at the Dirac point. Therefore, researchers have been developing methods to open the gap, which would open the door for the use of graphene in a wide range of electronic and photovoltaic devices. Through density functional theory calculations, we identified a specific range of electric field values that could potentially open the Dirac cones and separate the two π (VB) and two π* (CB) bands belonging to each graphene layer in FeCl3 intercalated bilayer graphene. To our knowledge, no such findings have been reported in the literature. These findings could aid in developing a better understanding of the electronic structure of materials and enable the design of more efficient electronic devices.