Electronic Transport through a Graphene Nanoribbon Composed of Nanoribbons of Different Widths

Abstract

Based on non-equilibrium Green’s function method combined with the density functional theory, we have studied the electronic properties of a graphene nanoribbon (GNR) which is composed of two GNRs with different widths. The results show that the electron transmission is greatly modulated by the applied bias. The current of the system displays negative differential resistance effect, which is attributed to the broadening of the transmission gap with the increase of the bias around the Fermi level.