Negative differential resistance devices by using N-doped graphene nanoribbons

Recently, extensive efforts have been devoted to the investigations of negative differential resistance (NDR) behavior in graphene. Here, by performing fully self-consistent density functional theory calculations combined with non-equilibrium Green's function technique, we investigate the transport properties of three molecules from conjugated molecule, one-dimension alkane chain, and single molecule magnet, which are sandwiched between two N-doped zigzag and armchair graphene nanoribbons (GNRs). We observe robust NDR effect in all examined molecular junctions including benzene, alkane, and planar four-coordinated Fe complex. Through the analyses of the calculated electronic structures and the bias-dependent transmission coefficients, we find that the narrow density of states of N-doped GNRs and the bias-dependent effective coupling between the discrete frontier molecular orbitals and the subbands of N-doped GNRs are responsible for the observed NDR phenomenon. These theoretical findings imply that N-doped GNRs hold great potential for building NDR devices based on various molecules. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.