The most common approach to dope an electronic material is to substitute a constituent atom with a suitable impurity. Here we show with first-principles calculations that this is not the best recipe for doping graphene with Al, P, Ga, or As impurities. Instead, substitution of two C atoms by one of these species is preferred (the ideal choice is phosphorus), as it shifts the Fermi level in the valence band without affecting significant changes in the electronic properties of low-energy carriers. This alternative way of doping could help optimize graphene-based devices and provide analogous doping schemes in other graphenelike materials.

• Received 26 September 2013
• Revised 27 December 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.89.035411