Positional dependence of energy gap on line defect in armchair graphene nanoribbons: Two-terminal transport and related issues

TL;DR

This paper investigates how line defects affect the energy gap and electron transport in armchair graphene nanoribbons, revealing that defect location influences metallic or semiconducting behavior and potential device applications.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of defect-induced energy gap variations and transport properties using a simple tight-binding model and Green's function formalism.

Findings

Energy gap depends on defect location in metallic nanoribbons.

Gaps are tunable in semiconducting nanoribbons.

Transport properties are affected by line defects.

Abstract

The characteristics of energy band spectrum of armchair graphene nanoribbons in presence of line defect are analyzed within a simple non-interacting tight-binding framework. In metallic nanoribbons an energy gap may or may not appear in the band spectrum depending on the location of the defect line, while in semiconducting ribbons the gaps are customized, yielding the potential applicabilities of graphene nanoribbons in nanoscale electronic devices. With a more general model, we also investigate two-terminal electron transport using Green's function formalism.