Spontaneous charge-ordered state in Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene

We propose that a weakly spontaneous charge-ordered insulating state probably exists in Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene, which can account for experimentally observed nonmonotonic behavior of resistance as a function of the gated field, namely, the gap closes and reopens at a critical gated field. The underlying physics is demonstrated by a simple model on a corresponding lattice that contains the nearest intralayer and interlayer hoppings, electric field, and staggered potential between different sublattices. Combining density functional theory calculations with model analyses, we argue that the interlayer van der Waals interactions cooperating with ripples may be responsible for the staggered potential, which induces a charge-ordered insulating state in the absence of the electric field.