Deformation effect on electronic and optical properties of nanographite ribbons

The electronic structures of deformed nanographite ribbons are calculated from the Huckel tight-binding model. They strongly depend on the uniaxial strain and the ribbon geometry (edge structure and width). The uniaxial strain significantly affects the subband spacings and the energy dispersions. A monotonous relation between the uniaxial strain and the state energies is absent. For armchair ribbons, the uniaxial strain drastically changes the energy gap and thus leads to the semiconductor-metal transition. The dependence of energy gap on strain is determined by the ribbon width. The large strain could also induce the subband crossing. On the other hand, zigzag ribbons remain metallic during the variation of the strain. Armchair and zigzag ribbons, respectively, behave as zigzag and armchair nanotubes. The calculated absorption spectrum exhibits rich peak structures, mainly owing to the divergent density of states of the one-dimensional subbands. The uniaxial-strain effects on optical excitations are strong for armchair ribbons, but weak for zigzag ribbons. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.