Structure-dependent electrical properties of graphene nanoribbon devices with graphene electrodes

TL;DR

This study explores how the width and edge structure of graphene nanoribbons influence their electrical properties in device applications, revealing a correlation between structure and electronic behavior crucial for nanoelectronic development.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence linking GNR structure to device electrical performance, advancing understanding for GNR-based electronic device design.

Findings

Output current varies with GNR width, indicating bandgap effects.

Electrical properties align with theoretical predictions.

Device performance depends on GNR structural parameters.

Abstract

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are a novel and intriguing class of materials in the field of nanoelectronics, since their properties, solely defined by their width and edge type, are controllable with high precision directly from synthesis. Here we study the correlation between the GNR structure and the corresponding device electrical properties. We investigated a series of field effect devices consisting of a film of armchair GNRs with different structures (namely width and/or length) as the transistor channel, contacted with narrowly spaced graphene sheets as the source-drain electrodes. By analyzing several tens of junctions for each individual GNR type, we observe that the values of the output current display a width-dependent behavior, indicating electronic bandgaps in good agreement with the predicted theoretical values. These results provide insights into the link between the ribbon structure and the device properties, which are fundamental for the development of GNR-based electronics.