Rectification induced in N2AA-doped armchair graphene nanoribbon device

By using non-equilibrium Green function formalism in combination with density functional theory, we investigated the electronic transport properties of armchair graphene nanoribbon devices in which one lead is undoped and the other is N-2(AA)-doped with two quasi-adjacent substitutional nitrogen atoms incorporating pairs of neighboring carbon atoms in the same sublattice A. Two kinds of N-2(AA)-doped style are considered, for N dopants substitute the center or the edge carbon atoms. Our results show that the rectification behavior with a large rectifying ratio can be found in these devices and the rectifying characteristics can be modulated by changing the width of graphene nanoribbons or the position of the N-2(AA) dopant. The mechanisms are revealed to explain the rectifying behaviors. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.