Graphene is a single layer of carbon and may be considered as one layer of the graphite structures. Nowadays, besides monolayer graphene, bi- or multi-layer varieties are also well known. These two-dimensional objects curl up to form carbon nanotubes. Graphene and carbon nanotubes comprise a new class of materials that are scientifically and technologically of extreme importance. This book deals with solid-state physics applied to this class of materials, ranging, as mentioned in the subtitle, from “electronic structure to quantum transport.” The content and structure of this book make it necessary that the reader has an advanced knowledge of theoretical solid-state physics.
The book is divided into seven chapters plus four chapters in the appendix. Each chapter starts with a short introduction and ends with suggestions for further reading. Additionally, at the end of each chapter, typical for a textbook to be used in parallel to university lectures, problems are included.
The book begins with a description of the electronic structure. Interestingly, the authors describe not only the “idealized” structure, but also the occurrence of lattice defects, pentagons, and heptagons, instead of hexagons, which are the basis of the graphene structure. The influence of these lattice defects and impurities on the electronic structure and transport properties is described in great detail. Unfortunately, these considerations were not extended to mechanical properties, as polymer composites with graphene or carbon nanotubes as filler show extremely promising mechanical properties. The majority of the book is devoted to quantum transport phenomena. These phenomena are treated in different systems, well ordered and disordered ones; doped and undoped graphene and carbon nanotubes; and, what is most interesting and very new, electron transport in amorphous graphene.
The final four chapters in the appendix describe mathematical methods to perform the calculations in connection with electronic structure and transport phenomena connected to graphene and related materials. It is important to mention that the authors make the computational codes available for readers at their homepages. As is necessary for an excellent book in sciences, there is a long list of a few hundred references at the end of the book. Even though the list of keywords at the end of the book is really long, it was obviously unavoidable to have many different references (up to ca. 70) for one keyword.
If a student or scientist already has basic theoretical knowledge, this is an excellent book for those interested in this special carbon-based material.
Reviewer: Dieter Vollathis CEO of NanoConsulting, Stutensee, Germany.
