Conductance of Graphene Nanoribbon Junctions and the Tight Binding Model
School of Electronic, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Birmingham, B15 2TT, Birmingham, UK
Nanoscale Res Lett 2011, 6:62 doi:10.1007/s11671-010-9791-yPublished: 7 October 2010
Planar carbon-based electronic devices, including metal/semiconductor junctions, transistors and interconnects, can now be formed from patterned sheets of graphene. Most simulations of charge transport within graphene-based electronic devices assume an energy band structure based on a nearest-neighbour tight binding analysis. In this paper, the energy band structure and conductance of graphene nanoribbons and metal/semiconductor junctions are obtained using a third nearest-neighbour tight binding analysis in conjunction with an efficient nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. We find significant differences in both the energy band structure and conductance obtained with the two approximations.