Electronic properties of bearded graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

We investigate the electronic properties of graphene nanoribbons with attachment of bearded bonds as a model of edge modification. The main effect of the addition of the beards is the appearance of additional energy subbands. The originally gapless armchair graphene nanoribbons become semiconducting. On the other hand, the originally semiconducting armchair graphene nanoribbons may or may not change to gapless systems depending on the width. With the inclusion of a transverse electric field, the band structures of bearded graphene nanoribbons are further altered. An electric field creates additional band-edge states, and changes the subband curvatures and spacings. Furthermore, the energy band symmetry about the chemical potential is lifted by the field. With varying width, the bandgap demonstrates a declining zigzag behavior, and touches the zero value regularly. Modifications in the electronic structure are reflected in the density of states. The numbers and energies of the density of state divergent peaks are found to be strongly dependent on the geometry and the electric field strength. The beard also causes electron transfer among different atoms, and alters the probability distributions. In addition, the electron transfers are modified by the electric field. Finally, the field introduces more zero values in the probability distributions, and removes their left–right symmetry.