Magnetic barriers and confinement of Dirac-Weyl quasiparticles in graphene

We discuss the properties of the two-dimensional massless Dirac-Weyl quasiparticles realized in graphene monolayers in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic fields. We show that in contrast to electrostatic barriers, appropriate magnetic barriers are able to confine these quasiparticles. This allows for a novel way of designing mesoscopic structures (e.g., quantum dots, quantum point contacts) in graphene. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.