1202.2297 (S. Bala Kumar et al.)

Strain induced conductance modulation in graphene grain boundary    [PDF]

S. Bala Kumar, Jing Guo

Grain boundaries (GBs) are ubiquitous in polycrystalline graphene materials
obtained by various growth methods. It has been shown previously that
considerable electrical transport gap can be opened by grain boundaries. On the
other hand, polycrystalline graphene with GBs is an atomically thin membrane
that can sustain extraordinary amount of strain. Here, by using atomistic
quantum transport numerical simulations, we examine modulation of electrical
transport properties of graphene GBs. The results indicate the modulation of
transport gap and electrical conductance strongly depends on the topological
structure of the GB. The transport gap of certain GBs can be significantly
widened by strain, which is useful for improving the on-off ratio in potential
transistor applications and for applications as monolayer strain sensors

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.2297