Impurities and magnetic interactions in graphene : a theoretical study

Abstract

Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon material that until its recent discovery was assumed not to exist in the free state. Graphene-related materials have been in the scientific limelight since then due to several key discoveries regarding their production and properties. There are numerous technological applications envisaged for them. Besides the huge potential for applicability, one key feature that makes graphene particularly popular is the simplicity with which many of its physical properties can be described, primarily due to the simple dispersion relation for its electrons. In this thesis a number of different topics relating to graphene systems, and in particular those doped with impurities, are investigated using a combination of analytical and numerical methods. We consider both graphene sheets and quasi-one-dimensional strips of graphene that are called 'nanoribbons'.