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Fabrication of Gate-tunable Graphene Devices for Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Studies with Coulomb Impurities
Published on: July 24, 2015
Band-selective filter in a zigzag graphene nanoribbon.
Jun Nakabayashi1, Daisuke Yamamoto, Susumu Kurihara
1Department of Physics, Waseda University, Okubo, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan. nakabayashi@kh.phys.waseda.ac.jp
Physical Review Letters
|March 5, 2009
Summary
Researchers studied electron transport in zigzag graphene nanoribbons. They found that potentials can act as filters, selectively transmitting electrons based on their energy bands, which could be observed in conductance measurements.
Area of Science:
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Materials Science
- Nanotechnology
Background:
- Graphene nanoribbons exhibit unique electronic properties due to quantum confinement.
- Understanding electron transport through potentials is crucial for nanoelectronic device design.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate electric transport in zigzag graphene nanoribbons.
- To explore the role of steplike and barrier potentials on electron scattering and transmission.
- To identify potential applications in electronic filtering.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the recursive Green's function method for numerical investigation.
- Analyzed electron scattering processes in the presence of steplike potentials.
- Investigated electron transmission through tunable barrier potentials.
Main Results:
- Discovered a selection rule for band indices in zigzag graphene nanoribbons with an even number of chains, preserving wave function parity.
- Demonstrated that barrier potentials can function as "band-selective filters", controlling electron transmission based on band indices.
- Proposed that these selection rules can be observed in conductance measurements using two barrier potentials.
Conclusions:
- Electron transport in zigzag graphene nanoribbons is governed by band-selective scattering and transmission rules.
- Tunable barrier potentials offer a mechanism for creating band-selective filters in graphene nanoribbons.
- The findings suggest potential for novel electronic devices based on controlled electron transport in graphene.
