Paper detail

Transport in graphene nanostructures with spatially modulated gap and potential

We study transport properties of graphene nanostructures consisted of alternating slabs of gapless and gapped graphene in the presence of piecewise constant external potential equal to zero in the gapless regions. The transmission through single-, double-barrier structures and superlattices has been studied. It was revealed that any n-barrier structure is perfectly transparent at certain conditions defining the positions of new Dirac points created in the superlattice. The conductance and the shot noise were as well computed and investigated for the considered graphene systems. In a general case, existence of gapped graphene fraction leads to decrease of the conductance and increase of the Fano factor. For two barriers formed by gapped graphene and separated by a long and highly doped region the Fano factor rises up to 0.5 in contrast to the similar gapless structure where the Fano factor is close to 0.25. Similarly to a gapless graphene superlattice, creation of each new Dirac point manifests itself as a conductivity resonance and a narrow dip in the Fano factor. However, gapped graphene inclusion into the potential-barrier regions in the superlattice leads to more complicated dependence of the Fano factor on the potential height compared to pseudo-diffusive behaviour (with F = 1/3) typical for a gapless superlattice.