Massless Dirac cones in graphene: experiments and theory

The opening of a gap in single-layer graphene is often ascribed to the breaking of the equivalence between the two carbon sublattices. We show by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy that Ir- and Na-modified graphene grown on the Ir(111) surface presents a very large unconventional gap that can be described in terms of a phenomenological “massless” Dirac model. We discuss the consequences and differences of this model in comparison of the standard massive gap model, and we investigate the conditions under which such anomalous gap can arise from a spontaneous symmetry breaking.