Strain-induced modifications of transport in gated graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

We investigate the effects of homogeneous and inhomogeneous deformations and edge disorder on the conductance of gated graphene nanoribbons. Under increasing homogeneous strain the conductance of such devices initially decreases before it acquires a resonance structure and, finally, becomes completely suppressed at higher strain. Edge disorder induces mode mixing in the contact regions, which can restore the conductance to its ballistic value. The valley-antisymmetric pseudomagnetic field induced by inhomogeneous deformations leads to the formation of additional resonance states, which originate either from the coupling into Fabry-P\'erot states that extend through the system or from the formation of states that are localized near the contacts, where the pseudomagnetic field is largest. In particular, the $n=0$ pseudo-Landau level manifests itself via two groups of conductance resonances close to the charge neutrality point.