# Negative Differential Resistance and Steep Switching in Chevron Graphene Nanoribbon Field Effect Transistors

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that chevron graphene nanoribbon transistors can exhibit negative differential resistance and steep switching due to their superlattice-like structure, with potential for high-performance electronic applications.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel device concept using chevron graphene nanoribbons showing negative differential resistance and steep switching, supported by quantum transport calculations.

## Key findings

- Peak-to-valley ratio exceeds 4800 at room temperature
- Subthreshold swing of 6 mV/decade over five orders of magnitude
- ON-current of 88 μA/μm

## Abstract

Ballistic quantum transport calculations based on the non-equilbrium Green's function formalism show that field-effect transistor devices made from chevron-type graphene nanoribbons (CGNRs) could exhibit negative differential resistance with peak-to-valley ratios in excess of 4800 at room temperature as well as steep-slope switching with 6 mV/decade subtheshold swing over five orders of magnitude and ON-currents of 88$\mu$A/$\mu$m. This is enabled by the superlattice-like structure of these ribbons that have large periodic unit cells with regions of different effective bandgap, resulting in minibands and gaps in the density of states above the conduction band edge. The CGNR ribbon used in our proposed device has been previously fabricated with bottom-up chemical synthesis techniques and could be incorporated into an experimentally-realizable structure.