Gap engineering in strained fold-like armchair graphene nanoribbons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strain fold-like deformations in armchair graphene nanoribbons can be engineered to control electronic bandgaps, enabling tunable electronic properties and potential applications in nanoelectronics.

Contribution

It introduces a method to engineer and predict electronic gap tuning in strained AGNRs using a universal width variation parameter and analytical solutions of the Dirac equation.

Findings

Bandgap can be mechanically tuned within a specific energy range.

Width variation is a key parameter for gap engineering.

Analytical predictions match numerical simulations.

Abstract

Strain fold-like deformations on armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs) can be properly engineered in experimental setups, and could lead to a new controlling tool for gaps and transport properties. Here, we analyze the electronic properties of folded AGNRs relating the electronic responses and the mechanical deformation. An important and universal parameter for the gap engineering is the ribbon percent width variation, i.e., the difference between the deformed and undeformed ribbon widths. AGNRs bandgap can be tuned mechanically in a well defined bounded range of energy values, eventually leading to a metallic system. This characteristic provides a new controllable degree of freedom that allows manipulation of electronic currents. We show that the numerical results are analytically predicted by solving the Dirac equation for the strained system.