An investigation of the role of line defects on the transport properties of armchair graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are narrow strips of graphene which show interesting electronic properties. The occurrence of defects (vacancy, line, impurity) in GNR can alter these properties. This work investigates the role of line defects on transmission probability for AGNR (armchair) for Ny = 3n, Ny = 3n + 1, and Ny = 3n + 2 systems. It is observed that the bandgap of these AGNRs can be tailored by inducing one and multiple line defects. The effect of defect position of the line defects in the above-mentioned AGNR systems is studied within a framework of a non-interacting tight-binding approach. The energy band diagrams (E–k diagrams) for these systems with one and multiple line defects are plotted and analyzed. Also, the two-terminal electron transport of these AGNRs with one and multiple line defects is obtained by using the non-equilibrium Green’s function (NEGF) methodology. This work opens up the possibility of controlling the bandgaps of AGNRs through multiple line defects for device applications.