Effect of substitutional defects on resonant tunneling diodes based on armchair graphene and boron nitride nanoribbons lateral heterojunctions

Abstract

A nanometer-scaled resonant tunneling diode based on lateral heterojunctions of armchair graphene and boron nitride nanoribbons, exhibiting negative differential resistance is proposed. Low-bandgap armchair graphene nanoribbons and high-bandgap armchair boron nitride nanoribbons are used to design the well and the barrier region, respectively. The effect of all possible substitutional defects (including BC, NC, CB, and CN) at the interface of graphene and boron nitride nanoribbons on the negative differential resistance behavior of the proposed resonant tunneling diode is investigated. Transport simulations are carried out in the framework of tight-binding Hamiltonians and non-equilibrium Green’s functions. The results show that a single substitutional defect at the interface of armchair graphene and boron nitride nanoribbons can dramatically affect the negative differential resistance behavior depending on its type and location in the structure.

Antidote-induced armchair graphene nanoribbon based resonant tunneling diodes

“…To overcome these limitations graphene nanoribbon (GNR) has recently been used to make RTDs [10,11]. GNR-based RTDs have overcome the lattice dislocations and lattice mismatch problems of conventional heterostructure RTDs, and GNR's exotic transport properties have enhanced the different device performances of these RTDs [12]. Graphene has been shown to have approximately 150 times higher mobility than conventional semiconductors due to the C-C bond in the hexagonal structure with sp 2 hybridization [13].…”

“…Graphene has been shown to have approximately 150 times higher mobility than conventional semiconductors due to the C-C bond in the hexagonal structure with sp 2 hybridization [13]. Also, after cutting the edge in armchair-shaped bulk graphene it can be turned into nanoribbon, which is called armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR) [12][13][14]. AGNR has enticing band gap tuning properties, which can easily be achieved by changing the width of the nanoribbon, which is not possible in 3D heterostructure materials.…”

“…They also showed that the peak to valley ratio (PVR) of the current can be controlled by changing the width and distance of the BN compound structure barrier. In another paper, Sanaeepur [12] doped boron nitride on the unit cell of nanoribbon, which showed a large change in the band structure and led to resonant tunneling.…”