Electronic properties of impurity-infected few-layer graphene nanoribbons

Spurred by achievements in devising different multilayered graphene-based nano-systems, based on the random tight-binding Hamiltonian model and within the coherent potential approximation, the influence of varying the number of layers and the effect of doping by the boron and nitrogen impurities on the density of states of a mono- and few-layer armchair- and zigzag-edge graphene nanoribbons are theoretically investigated. When the nanoribbons are pristine, with increasing the number of layers the band gap of the armchair nanoribbons is decreased, yet the zigzag ribbons remain metallic and depending on the number of the layers few peaks are appeared around the zero-energy level. Moreover, in the presence of impurities, the band gap of the armchair nanoribbons is decreased for each number of layers. The Van-Hove singularities are steadily broadened and the density of states move to a higher (lower) value of the energy as a result of doping with boron (nitrogen) atoms. This study could provide with us to explore and devise new optoelectronic devices based on the impurity-infected graphene nanoribbons with tunable widths and edges.