Electronic and Magnetic Properties of Hybrid Graphene Nanoribbons with Zigzag-Armchair Heterojunctions

Abstract

Inspired by the experimentally observed zigzag-armchair graphene nanoribbon heterojunctions, we constructed a new class of infinitely long hybrid graphene nanoribbons (HGNRs), and systematically investigated their electronic and magnetic properties by means of spin-polarized first-principles computations. HGNRs are converted from nonmagnetic semiconductors to magnetic semiconductors by increasing the length of zigzag segments. In particular, half metallicity can be achieved in HGNRs under external transverse electric fields. These results suggest that the introduction of armchair “impurity” will not affect the desired electronic and magnetic properties of zigzag graphene nanoribbons.