Magnetotransport through graphene nanoribbons at high magnetic fields

Abstract

We have investigated the magnetoresistance of lithographically prepared single-layer graphene nanoribbons in pulsed, perpendicular magnetic fields up to 60 T and performed corresponding transport simulations using a tight-binding model and several types of disorder. In experiment, at high carrier densities we observe Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations and the quantum Hall effect, while at low densities the oscillations disappear and an initially negative magnetoresistance becomes strongly positive at high magnetic fields. The strong resistance increase at very high fields and low-carrier densities is tentatively ascribed to a field-induced insulating state in the bulk graphene leads. Comparing numerical results and experiment, we demonstrate that at least edge disorder and bulk short-range impurities are important in our samples. © 2012 American Physical Society.