J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 45, 325104 (2012)

SCI

Resonant tunnelling diodes based on graphene/h-BN heterostructure

V Hung Nguyen, F Mazzamuto, A Bournel and P Dollfus

In this work, we propose a resonant tunnelling diode (RTD) based on a double-barrier graphene/boron nitride (BN) heterostructure as a device suitable to take advantage of the elaboration of atomic sheets containing different domains of BN and C phases within a hexagonal lattice. The device operation and performance are investigated by means of a self-consistent solution within the non-equilibrium Green’s function formalism on a tight-binding Hamiltonian. This RTD exhibits a negative differential conductance effect, which involves the resonant tunnelling through both the electron and hole bound states in the graphene quantum well. It is shown that the peak-to-valley ratio reaches a value of ∼4 at room temperature even for zero bandgap and can be higher than 10 when a finite gap opens in the graphene channel.