Time-dependent Landauer-Büttiker approach to charge pumping in ac-driven graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

We apply the recently-developed partition-free time-dependent Landauer-B\"uttiker (TD-LB) formalism to the study of periodically-driven transport in graphene nanoribbons (GNR). When an AC driving is applied, this formalism can be used to prove generic conditions for the existence of a non-zero DC component of the net current (pump current) through the molecular device. Time-reversal symmetry breaking in the driving field is investigated and found to be insufficient for a non-zero pump current. We then derive explicit formulas for the current response to a particular biharmonic bias. We calculate the pump current through different GNR configurations and find that the sign and existence of a non-zero pump current can be tuned by simple alterations to the static parameters of the TD bias. Further, we investigate transient currents in different GNR configurations. We find a selection rule of even and odd harmonic response signal depending on a broken dynamical inversion symmetry in the bias.