Eur. Phys. J. B (2012) 85: 301
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2012-30236-6

Regular Article

Electronic and transport properties of a biased multilayer hexagonal boron nitride

¹ State Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Physics and Department of Physics, Peking University, No. 5 Yiheyuan Road Haidian District, Beijing 100871, P.R. China
² Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, No. 5 Yiheyuan Road Haidian District, Beijing 100871, P.R. China

^a e-mail: tangkechao1010@hotmail.com
^b e-mail: jinglu@pku.edu.cn

Received: 16 March 2012
Received in final form: 5 June 2012
Published online: 5 September 2012

Abstract

We explore the electronic and transport properties out of a biased multilayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) by first-principles calculations. The band gaps of multilayer h-BN decrease almost linearly with increasing perpendicular electric field, irrespective of the layer number N and stacking manner. The critical electric filed (E₀) required to close the band gap decreases with the increasing N and can be approximated by E₀ = 3.2 / (N − 1) (eV). We provide a quantum transport simulation of a dual-gated 4-layer h-BN with graphene electrodes. The transmission gap in this device can be effectively reduced by double gates, and a high on-off ratio of 3000 is obtained with relatively low voltage. This renders biased MLh-BN a promising channel in field effect transistor fabrication.