An analytical approach, using the Dirac-Weyl equation, is implemented to obtain the energy spectrum and optical absorption of a circular graphene quantum dot in the presence of an external magnetic field. Results are obtained for the infinite-mass and zigzag boundary conditions. We found that the energy spectrum of a dot with the zigzag boundary condition exhibits a zero-energy band regardless of the value of the magnetic field, while for the infinite-mass boundary condition, the zero-energy states appear only for high magnetic fields. The analytical results are compared to those obtained from the tight-binding model: (i) we show the validity range of the continuum model and (ii) we find that the continuum model with the infinite-mass boundary condition describes rather well its tight-binding analog, which can be partially attributed to the blurring of the mixed edges by the staggered potential.

• Received 7 July 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.205441