Positional dependence of energy gap on line defect in armchair graphene nanoribbons: Two-terminal transport and related issues

The characteristics of energy band spectrum of armchair graphene nanoribbons in the presence of line defect are analyzed within a simple non-interacting tight-binding framework. In metallic nanoribbons, an energy gap may or may not appear in the band spectrum depending on the location of the defect line, while in semiconducting ribbons, the gaps are customized, yielding the potential applicabilities of graphene nanoribbons in nanoscale electronic devices. With a more general model, we also investigate two-terminal electron transport using Green's function formalism. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.