Control of electric current by graphene edge structure engineering

In graphene nanoribbon junctions, the nearly perfect transmission occurs in some junctions while the zero conductance dips due to anti-resonance appear in others. We have classified the appearance of zero conductance dips for all combinations of ribbon and junction edge structures. These transport properties do not attribute to the whole junction structure but the partial corner edge structure, which indicates that one can control the electric current simply by cutting a part of nanoribbon edge. The ribbon width is expected to be narrower than 10 nm in order to observe the zero conductance dips at room temperature.Comment: accepted for publication in Appl. Phys. Let

Perfectly Conducting Channel and Universality Crossover in Disordered Nano-Graphene Ribbons

The band structure of graphene ribbons with zigzag edges have two valleys well separated in momentum space, related to the two Dirac points of the graphene spectrum. The propagating modes in each valley contain a single chiral mode originating from a partially flat band at band center. This feature gives rise to a perfectly conducting channel in the disordered system, if the impurity scattering does not connect the two valleys, i.e. for long-range impurity potentials. Ribbons with short-range impurity potentials, however, through inter-valley scattering display ordinary localization behavior. The two regimes belong to different universality classes: unitary for long-range impurities and orthogonal for short-range impurities.Comment: under revie

Berry's Phase for Standing Wave Near Graphene Edge

Standing waves near the zigzag and armchair edges, and their Berry's phases are investigated. It is suggested that the Berry's phase for the standing wave near the zigzag edge is trivial, while that near the armchair edge is non-trivial. A non-trivial Berry's phase implies the presence of a singularity in parameter space. We have confirmed that the Dirac singularity is absent (present) in the parameter space for the standing wave near the zigzag (armchair) edge. The absence of the Dirac singularity has a direct consequence in the local density of states near the zigzag edge. The transport properties of graphene nanoribbons observed by recent numerical simulations and experiments are discussed from the point of view of the Berry's phases for the standing waves.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure