Quantum Resonant Tunneling in In-Plate Graphene Nanoribbon/h-BN Heterojunctions

The first principle calculations of the electrical properties of in-plate hetero-junctions of armchair graphene nanoribbon/hexagonal boron notride(AGNR/h-BN)s are presented. They are carried out using SIESTA package, which consists of numerical codes of the density functional theory(DFT) and the non-equilibrium Green's function(NEGF). The center part is made of two in-plate hetero-junctions of two transverse h-BN arrays embedded into the conductive (3n-1)-family of AGNR((3n-1)-AGNR) and remains two-dimensional. Adopting (3n-1)-AGNR to the both side lead parts, which must be metallic. Two transverse arrays of h-BN, which is wide-gap semi-conductor, act as a double barrier system. The quantum resonant tunneling through the double barrier system is found in the transmission function(TF)s clearly and I-V characteristics of 8, 11, 14-AGNR/h-BN. The TF has sharp peaks in a neighborhood of the Fermi energy due to the tunneling and the I-V characteristics becomes step-wise. The one-dimensional(1D) Dirac equation model is proposed to study double barrier system. Though the 1D Dirac model is very simple, it reproduces most of the peaks of the TF nearby the Fermi energy. The in-plate hetero-junctions of zigzag graphene nanoribbon/h-BN are also discussed.