Electronic and Optical Properties of Graphene

Graphene has been hailed as a wonder material due to its singular optoelectronic properties. Notably, most of the awe-inspiring electronic properties of graphene can be understood from elementary considerations about its crystal structure and through the application of standard models of bandstructure theory. In this spirit, in this chapter we provide a cursory review of graphene’s bandstructure and its basic electronic properties. These considerations will then supply us with the necessary ingredients for determining the optical response of graphene.