Abstract
Graphene has unique electronic properties1,2, and graphene nanoribbons are of particular interest because they exhibit a conduction bandgap that arises due to size confinement and edge effects3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. Theoretical studies have suggested that graphene nanoribbons could have interesting magneto-electronic properties, with a very large predicted magnetoresistance4,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20. Here, we report the experimental observation of a significant enhancement in the conductance of a graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistor by a perpendicular magnetic field. A negative magnetoresistance of nearly 100% was observed at low temperatures, with over 50% magnetoresistance remaining at room temperature. This magnetoresistance can be tuned by varying the gate or source–drain bias. We also find that the charge transport in the nanoribbons is not significantly modified by an in-plane magnetic field. The large observed values of magnetoresistance may be attributed to the reduction of quantum confinement through the formation of cyclotron orbits and the delocalization effect under the perpendicular magnetic field15,16,17,18,19,20.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge technical support from the Center for Quantum Research and the Nanoelectronics Research Facility at UCLA. The authors thank D. Newhauser and Y. Tserkovnyak for discussions. Y.H. acknowledges support from the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and an Applied Science Fellowship. X.D. acknowledges support from NSF CAREER award 0956171 and the NIH Director's New Innovator Award Program, part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, through grant no. 1DP2OD004342-01.
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X.D., Y.H., J.B., R.C. and L.L. conceived and designed the experiments. J.B., C.R., F.X. and A.S. performed the experiments. J.B. and C.R. collected and analysed the data. M.W., A.S. and K.W. contributed experimental tools. J.B., C.R., Y.H. and X.D. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Bai, J., Cheng, R., Xiu, F. et al. Very large magnetoresistance in graphene nanoribbons. Nature Nanotech 5, 655–659 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.154
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2010.154
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