Experimental Confirmation of Large Magnetoresistance in Graphene Nanoribbons

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) have been theoretically predicted to have a very large magnetoresistance, and a group from UCLA has now experimentally shown that they in fact do. Magnetoresistance is the property of a material to change the value of its electrical resistance when an external magnetic field is applied to it. The UCLA study was published in Nature Nanotechnology as an advanced online publication.

GNRs are thin strips of graphene, or unrolled single-walled carbon nanotubes, and have been theorized as a possible alternative to copper for integrated circuit interconnects. To show the electrical transport characteristics, the UCLA team fabricated graphene nanoribbon field-effect transistors (FET).

Authors of the paper include Alexandros Shailos, the Technical Director of the Center for Quantum Research at CNSI; Kang Wang and Yu Huang from the departments of electrical engineering and materials science & engineering respectively at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science; and Xiangfeng Duan from the department of chemistry & biochemistry. Prof. Wang is an Associate Director of CNSI, and Profs Huang and Duan are both researchers at CNSI.

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Very large magnetoresistance in graphene nanoribbons (PDF)