Electronic Transport in Graphitic Nanoribbon Films

We fabricate, pattern, and analyze thin films composed of multilayer graphene nanoribbons. These films are conductive at room termperature but depict noticeable insulating behavior at low temperatures (<20 K) due to their disordered structure. We study the transport in this strong localization regime, by analyzing the dependence of resistivity on temperature and electric and magnetic fields in the framework of the variable range hopping theory. Resistivity dependence on the magnetic field confirms the insulating behavior of the films and can be fitted effectively by forward interference scattering and wave function shrinkage models at low and high magnetic field regimes, respectively. We extract large localization lengths in the range of similar to 45-90 nm from both the magnetic and electric field dependence of resistivity and relate these values to the high conductance in the nanoribbons and/or good contact between them. By revealing the fundamental structural and transport properties Of graphitic nanoribbon films, our results help devise methods to further improve these films for electronic and photonic device applications.