Phosphorus-doping-induced rectifying behavior in armchair graphene nanoribbons devices

Based on nonequilibrium Green's functions in combination with density-functions theory, the transport properties of armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR) devices were investigated, in which one lead is undoped armchair graphene nanoribbons, and the other is phosphorus (P)-doped armchair graphene nanoribbons. The results manifest that there is the rectification behavior with large rectifying ratio in the AGNR devices and the rectification characteristics can be modulated by changing the width of the graphene nanoribbons. On the contrary, for the same width of the graphene nanoribbons, the position of P dopant has little or no effect on changing I-V characteristics. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.