Abstract

In this article, we investigate the temperature and chemical potential dependence of the optical conductivity of graphene, within a field theoretical representation in the continuum approximation, arising from an underlying tight-binding atomistic model, that includes up to next-to-nearest neighbor coupling. Our calculations allow us to obtain the dependence of the optical conductivity on frequency, temperature and finite chemical potential, generalizing our previouly reported calculations at zero temperature, and reproducing the universal and experimentally verified value at zero frequency. Moreover, we also show that a small but still measurable shift in the conductance minimum arises as a function of the second-nearest neighbor hopping t', thus providing the possibility to directly measure this parameter in transport experiments