Transport Properties of Graphene Nanoroads in Boron-Nitride Sheets

TL;DR

This paper investigates the robustness of 1D transport channels in graphene nanoroads embedded in boron-nitride sheets, emphasizing their stability at grain boundaries due to topological effects and valley-Hall conductivity.

Contribution

It demonstrates that transport channels are more robust at AB/BA grain boundaries, linking topological properties to electronic transport in graphene-BN heterostructures.

Findings

Transport channels are more robust at AB/BA grain boundaries.

Topological effects contribute to channel stability.

Valley-Hall conductivity influences transport properties.

Abstract

We demonstrate that the one-dimensional (1D) transport channels that appear in the gap when graphene nanoroads are embedded in boron-nitride (BN) sheets are more robust when they are inserted at AB/BA grain boundaries. Our conclusions are based on ab-initio electronic structure calculations for a variety of different crystal orientations and bonding arrangements at the BN/C interfaces. This property is related to the valley-Hall conductivity present in the BN band structure and to the topologically protected kink states that appear in continuum Dirac models with position dependent masses.