Electronic structures and transport properties of low-dimensional GaN nanoderivatives: A first-principles study

Abstract

Low-dimensional gallium nitride (GaN) nanoderivatives have recently attracted great attention, and they are one of the most attractive fields for future development of microelectronic devices. Here, the electronic structures and transport properties of GaN nanoderivatives were investigated by density functional theory. For two-dimensional bilayer GaN nanosheets, we found that AA-NN(GaGa) is the most stable structure among the five GaN stacking structures, and the stacking arrangement does not change the wide and indirect band gap of these two-dimensional bilayer stacked nanosheets. The transport properties of one-dimensional GaN nanoribbons were also investigated. The current in the bilayer GaN nanodevices was about twice that in the monolayer GaN nanodevices regardless of the nanoribbon morphology. That is, the bilayer GaN nanodevices show the current superposition law, like a parallel circuit, compared with their respective monolayer GaN model devices. The one-dimensional armchair boundary GaN nanoribbon devices showed the width effect because the width had a great effect on the current–voltage (I-V) curve and transport characteristics, but the one-dimensional zigzag boundary GaN nanoribbon devices did not and the I-V characteristic curves for different nanoribbon widths were similar. These extraordinary electronic structures indicate that GaN is promising for application in microelectronic devices.