No Arabic abstract
We investigate the diffusive electron-transport properties of charge-doped graphene ribbons and nanoribbons with imperfect edges. We consider different regimes of edge scattering, ranging from wide graphene ribbons with (partially) diffusive edge scattering to ribbons with large width variations and nanoribbons with atomistic edge roughness. For the latter, we introduce an approach based on pseudopotentials, allowing for an atomistic treatment of the band structure and the scattering potential, on the self-consistent solution of the Boltzmann transport equation within the relaxation-time approximation and taking into account the edge-roughness properties and statistics. The resulting resistivity depends strongly on the ribbon orientation, with zigzag (armchair) ribbons showing the smallest (largest) resistivity and intermediate ribbon orientations exhibiting intermediate resistivity values. The results also show clear resistivity peaks, corresponding to peaks in the density of states due to the confinement-induced subband quantization, except for armchair-edge ribbons that show a very strong width dependence because of their claromatic behavior. Furthermore, we identify a strong interplay between the relative position of the two valleys of graphene along the transport direction, the correlation profile of the atomistic edge roughness, and the chiral valley modes, leading to a peculiar strongly suppressed resistivity regime, most pronounced for the zigzag orientation.
The conductivity of armchair graphene nanoribbons in the presence of short-range impurities and edge roughness is studied theoretically using the Boltzmann transport equation for quasi-one-dimensional systems. As the number of occupied subbands increases, the conductivity due to short-range impurities converges towards the two-dimensional case. Calculations of the magnetoconductivity confirm the edge-roughness-induced dips at cyclotron radii close to the ribbon width suggested by the recent quantum simulations.
The magnetoconductance of graphene nanoribbons with rough zigzag and armchair edges is studied by numerical simulations. nanoribbons with sufficiently small bulk disorder show a pronounced magnetoconductance minimum at cyclotron radii close to the ribbon width, in close analogy to the wire peak observed in conventional semiconductor quantum wires. In zigzag nanoribbons, this feature becomes visible only above a threshold amplitude of the edge roughness, as a consequence of the reduced current density close to the edges.
We study the effects of the long-range disorder potential and warping on the conductivity and mobility of graphene ribbons using the Landauer formalism and the tight-binding p-orbital Hamiltonian. We demonstrate that as the length of the structure increases the system undergoes a transition from the ballistic to the diffusive regime. This is reflected in the calculated electron density dependencies of the conductivity and the mobility. In particular, we show that the mobility of graphene ribbons varies as mu(n) n^(-lambda), with 0<lambda<0.5. The exponent lambda depends on the length of the system with lambda=0.5 corresponding to short structures in the ballistic regime, whereas the diffusive regime lambda=0 (when the mobility is independent on the electron density) is reached for sufficiently long structures. Our results can be used for the interpretation of experimental data when the value of lambda can be used to distinguish the transport regime of the system (i.e. ballistic, quasi-ballistic or diffusive). Based on our findings we discuss available experimental results.
Zig-zag edge graphene ribbons grown on 6H-SiC facets are ballistic conductors. It has been assumed that zig-zag graphene ribbons grown on 4H-SiC would also be ballistic. However, in this work we show that SiC polytype matters; ballistic graphene ribbons only grow on 6H SiC. 4H and 4H-passivated ribbons are diffusive conductors. Detailed photoemmision and microscopy studies show that 6H-SiC sidewalls zig-zag ribbons are metallic with a pair of n-doped edge states associated with asymmetric edge terminations, In contrast, 4H-SiC zig-zag ribbons are strongly bonded to the SiC; severely distorting the ribbons $pi$-bands. $text{H}_2$-passivation of the 4H ribbons returns them to a metallic state but show no evidence of edge states.
The transport properties of carriers in semiconducting graphene nanoribbons are studied by comparing the effects of phonon, impurity, and line-edge roughness scattering. It is found that scattering from impurities located at the surface of nanoribbons, and from acoustic phonons are as important as line edge roughness scattering. The relative importance of these scattering mechanisms varies with the temperature, Fermi level location, and the width of the ribbons. Based on the analysis, strategies for improvement of low-field mobility are described.