Coherent transport through graphene nanoribbons in the presence of edge disorder

Abstract

We simulate electron transport through graphene nanoribbons of experimentally realizable size (length L up to 2 μm and width W ≈ 40 nm) in the presence of scattering at rough edges. Our numerical approach is based on a modular recursive Green's function technique that features sub-linear scaling of the computational effort with L. We investigate backscattering at edge defects: Fourier spectroscopy of individual scattering states allows us to disentangle inter-valley and intra-valley scattering. We observe Anderson localization with a well-defined exponential decay over ten orders of magnitude in amplitude. We determine the corresponding localization length for different strengths and shapes of edge roughness. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.