Effects of edge magnetism and external electric field on energy gaps in multilayer graphene nanoribbons

Abstract

Using first-principles density-functional theory, we study the electronic structure of multilayer graphene nanoribbons as a function of the ribbon width and the external electric field, applied perpendicular to the ribbon layers. We consider two types of edges (armchair and zigzag), each with two edge alignments (referred to as alpha- and beta-alignments). We show that, as in monolayer and bilayer armchair nanoribbons, multilayer armchair nanoribbons exhibit three classes of energy gaps which decrease with increasing width. Nonmagnetic multilayer zigzag nanoribbons have band structures that are sensitive to the edge alignments and the number of layers, indicating different magnetic properties and resulting energy gaps. We find that energy gaps can be induced in ABC-stacked ribbons with a perpendicular external electric field while in other stacking sequences, the gaps decrease or remain closed as the external electric field increases.

7 pages, 9 figures, text revised, last version before publication

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• Ferrimagnetic and antiferromagnetic phase in bilayer graphene nanoflake controlled with external electric fields
• Band Structure and Optical Absorption in Multilayer Armchair Graphene Nanoribbons: A Pariser-Parr-Pople Model Study
• Edge Saturation effects on the magnetism and band gaps in multilayer graphene ribbons and flakes
• Multilayer graphene nanoribbon under vertical electric field