Theoretical study of the influence of the electric field on the electronic properties of armchair boron nitride nanoribbon

•Modified TB model is used to analyze the electronic properties of BNNRs under electric field.•The on-site energy for edge atoms and center part atoms is different.•Applying electric field leads to semiconductor metallic transition.

We have investigated the electronic properties of A-BNNRs in the external electric field using third nearest neighbor tight binding approximation including edge effects. We found that the dependence of on-site energy to the external electric field for edge atoms and center part atoms is different. By comparing the band structure in the different fields, several differences are clearly seen such as modification of energy dispersions, creation of additional band edge states and band gap reduction. By increasing the electric field the band gap reduces linearly until reaches zero and BNNRs with larger width are more sensitive than small ones. All changes in the band structure are directly reflected in the DOS spectrum. The numbers and the energies of the DOS peaks are dependent on the electric field strength.

Graphical abstractIn external electric field, considering the edge effects with linearly-dependent potential (green and red lines) is not sufficient for explaining the gap behaviours of BNNRs.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide