Effects of disorder and contacts on transport through graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

We study the transport of charge carriers through finite graphene structures. The use of numerical exact kernel polynomial and Green function techniques allows us to treat actual sized samples beyond the Dirac-cone approximation. Particularly we investigate disordered nanoribbons, normal-conductor/graphene interfaces and normal-conductor/graphene/normal-conductor junctions with a focus on the behavior of the local density of states, single-particle spectral function, optical conductivity and conductance. We demonstrate that the contacts and bulk disorder will have a major impact on the electronic properties of graphene-based devices.