Eur. Phys. J. B (2013) 86: 80
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-30754-7

Regular Article

Edge reconstruction limited electron transport of zigzag graphene nanoribbon

¹ College of Physical Science and Technology, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, Hubei 434023, P.R. China
² College of Optoelectronic Information, Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing 400054, P.R. China

^a These authors contributed equally to the work.
^b e-mail: zhaojun@yangtzeu.edu.cn

Received: 16 August 2012
Received in final form: 6 November 2012
Published online: 4 March 2013

Abstract

Recent experimental characterizations have clearly visualized edge reconstructions in graphene nanoribbon and stable defective configurations. We have performed first principles calculations to evaluate the effects of atomic edge arrangement on the electronic transport properties of zigzag graphene nanoribbons (ZGNR). It is found that different conductance behaviors and variation of resonant energies are influenced by atomic reconstruction among three defective edge configurations. It is predicted that the conductance in edge reconstructed ZGNR is not a monotonic function of the increasing concentration of defects in size, but the topology and the distribution of defects should be taken into account. Our findings suggest that the ability of tuning the electronic transport of ZGNR could be improved through edge reconstruction activated by energetic particle irradiation.