Fabrication and electrical properties of graphene nanoribbons

Graphene is a semimetal with a zero band gap, and therefore cannot be used for effective field-effect transistors (FETs) at room temperature. Theoretical study predicted an appreciable band gap opening with the formation of nanometer graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), providing opportunities for graphene based transistor application. In this paper, we review recent developments in fabrication and electrical property studies of GNRs. We first study the theoretic prediction of electrical structures in ideal graphene nanoribbons which is closely related to the edge configurations. Different experimental efforts to fabricate GNRs are introduced and the electrical transport behaviors of fabricated GNR device are described. We then investigate the effect of edge disorder and charge impurities on real device performance, in which Anderson localization and Coulomb blockade effect are discussed to explain the observed transport behaviors. Other approaches such as symmetry broken to induce band gap on bulk graphene are also described. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.