Edge disorder induced Anderson localization and conduction gap in graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

We study the effect of the edge disorder on the conductance of the graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). We find that only very modest edge disorder is sufficient to induce the conduction energy gap in the otherwise metallic GNRs and to lift any difference in the conductance between nanoribbons of different edge geometry. We relate the formation of the conduction gap to the pronounced edge disorder induced Anderson-type localization which leads to the strongly enhanced density of states at the edges, formation of surface-like states and to blocking of conductive paths through the ribbons.