Theoretical study of graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistors

Carbon nanoribbons (CNRs) have been recently experimentally and theoretically investigated for different device applications due to their unique electronic properties. In this work, we present a theoretical study of the electronic structure, e.g. bandgap and density of states, of armchair carbon nanoribbons, using both, simple analytical solutions and numerical solutions based on a πorbital tight-binding approach. Compared to carbon nanotubes (CNTs), the bandgap and the density of states of CNRs are smaller, attributed to the different boundary conditions (rolled-up graphene vs. planar). The device performance of CNR MOSFETs can potentially outperform planar Si MOSFETs, and compete with high performance CNT MOSFETs.