Topological phase-diagram of time-periodically rippled zigzag graphene nanoribbons

Abstract: The topological properties of electronic edge states in time-periodically driven spatially-periodic corrugated zigzag graphene nanoribbons are studied. An effective one-dimensional Hamiltonian is used to describe the electronic properties of graphene and the time-dependence is studied within the Floquet formalism. Then the quasienergy spectrum of the evolution operator is obtained using analytical and numeric calculations, both in excellent agreement. Depending on the external parameters of the time-driving, two different kinds (type I and type II) of touching band points are found, which have a Dirac-like nature at both zero and $\pm\pi$ quasienergy. These touching band points are able to host topologically protected edge states for a finite size system. The topological nature of such edge states was confirmed by an explicit evaluation of the Berry phase in the neighborhood of type I touching band points and by obtaining the winding number of the effective Hamiltonian for type II touching band points. Additionally, the topological phase diagram in terms of the driving parameters of the system was built.