Graphene Nanoribbons with End- and Side-Contacted Electrodes
S. Krompiewski
Institute of Molecular Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, M. Smoluchowskiego 17, 60-179 PoznaƄ, Poland
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This contribution reports on theoretical studies of electronic transport through graphene nanoribbons in the two-terminal geometry. The method combines the Landauer-type formalism with Green's function technique within the framework of the standard tight-binding model. The aim of this study is to gain some insight on how fundamental electric current characteristics (conductance and shot noise) depend on interface conditions imposed by graphene nanoribbon/metal-electrode contact details. Calculations have been carried out for both end- and side-contact geometries, and metallic (zigzag-edge) as well as semiconducting (armchair-edge) graphene nanoribbons. It turns out that results for side-contacted systems depend on the ratio between the free-standing graphene nanoribbon length to that covered by the electrode. For sufficiently long nanoribbons the results start converging when this ratio exceeds 0.5. In the case of ferromagnetic contacts, the giant magnetoresistance coefficient is also discussed.
DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.121.1216
PACS numbers: 81.05.ue, 75.47.De, 73.23.Ad