Spectroscopic signatures of electronic excitations in Raman scattering in thin films of rhombohedral graphite

A. Garcia-Ruiz Fuentes, S. Slizovskiy, M. Mucha-Kruczynski, V. I. Fal'ko

Published 2019-05-29Version 1

Rhombohedral is a phase of graphite that features unusual electronic properties, including persistence of low-energy surface bands of a topological nature. Here, we study the contribution of electron-hole excitations towards inelastic light scattering in thin films of rhombohedral graphite. We show that, in contrast to the feature-less electron-hole contribution towards Raman spectrum of graphitic films with Bernal stacking, the inelastic light scattering accompanied by electron-hole excitations in crystals with rhombohedral stacking produces distinct features in the Raman signal which can be used both to identify the stacking and to determine the number of layers in the film.