Anderson disorder in graphene nanoribbons: A local distribution approach

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Anderson disorder affects electron localization in graphene nanoribbons by analyzing local density of states distributions, considering various geometries and disorder parameters to understand transport properties.

Contribution

It introduces a local distribution approach to study localization in realistic graphene nanoribbons, accounting for size, edge geometry, and disorder characteristics.

Findings

Localization length depends on ribbon size and edge type.

Disorder strength influences the transition to Anderson localization.

Wave function localization varies with disorder type and ribbon geometry.

Abstract

Disorder effects strongly influence the transport properties of graphene based nanodevices even to the point of Anderson localization. Focusing on the local density of states and its distribution function, we analyze the localization properties of actual size graphene nanoribbons. In particular we determine the time evolution and localization length of the single particle wave function in dependence on the ribbon extension and edge geometry, as well as on the disorder type and strength.