Atomistic investigation of low-field mobility in graphene nanoribbons

TL;DR

This study uses atomistic simulations to analyze how various scattering mechanisms impact electron mobility in graphene nanoribbons, highlighting the dominant role of edge disorder at room temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed atomistic simulation methodology to quantify the effects of different scattering sources on graphene nanoribbon mobility.

Findings

Edge disorder significantly reduces mobility in narrow nanoribbons.

Charged impurities and phonons are less impactful at room temperature.

Simulation results align well with existing experimental data.

Abstract

We have investigated the main scattering mechanisms affecting mobility in graphene nanoribbons using detailed atomistic simulations. We have considered carrier scattering due to acoustic and optical phonons, edge roughness, single defects, and ionized impurities, and we have defined a methodology based on simulations of statistically meaningful ensembles of nanoribbon segments. Edge disorder heavily affects mobility at room temperature in narrower nanoribbons, whereas charged impurities and phonons are hardly the limiting factors. Results are favorably compared to the few experiments available in the literature.