Sub-MeV dark matter detection with bilayer graphene

Abstract

The light dark matter mass regime has emerged as the next frontier in the direct detection experiment due to the lack of any detection signal in the higher mass range. In this paper, we propose a new detector material, a bilayer stack of graphene to detect sub-MeV dark matter. Its voltage-tunable low energy sub-eV electronic band gap makes it an excellent choice for the detector material of a light dark matter search experiment. We compute its dielectric function using the random phase approximation and estimate the projected sensitivity for sub-MeV dark matter-electron scattering and sub-eV dark matter absorption. We show that a bilayer graphene dark matter detector can have competitive sensitivity as other candidate target materials, like a superconductor, but with a tunable threshold energy in this mass regime. The dark matter scattering rate in bilayer graphene is also characterized by a daily modulation from the rotation of the Earth which may help us mitigate the backgrounds in a future experiment. We also outline a detector design concept and provide noise estimates that can be followed to set up an experiment in the future. Published by the American Physical Society 2024