2021/11/10 by Nicolas Gastellu, Gastellu, Nicolas, Michael Kilgour +3
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Quantum and electron transport phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2111.05837
openalex publication_date 2021/11/10 · openalex created_date 2022/05/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In molecular electronic conduction, exotic lattice morphologies often give rise to exotic behaviors. Among 2D systems, graphene is a notable example. Recently, a stable amorphous version of graphene called Monolayer Amorphous Carbon (MAC) was synthesized. MAC poses a new set of questions regarding the effects of disorder on conduction. In this Letter, we perform ensemble-level computational analysis of the coherent electronic transmission through MAC nano-fragments in search of defining characteristics. Our analysis, relying on a semi-empirical Hamiltonian (Pariser-Parr-Pople) and Landauer theory, showed that states near the Fermi energy (EF) in MAC inherit partial characteristics of analogous surface states in graphene nano-fragments. Away from EF, current is carried by a set of delocalized states which transition into a subset of insulating interior states at the band edges. Finally, we also found that quantum interference between the frontier orbitals is a common feature among MAC nano-fragments.