Edge effects on quantum thermal transport in graphene nanoribbons: Tight-binding calculations

Abstract

We investigate the quantum thermal transport properties of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) with natural edges by combining the Naval Research Laboratory tight-binding approach and the phonon nonequilibrium Green's function method. Thermal transport of GNRs shows substantial dependence on the width due to edge reconstructions. For GNRs with n≥12, where n is the number of atoms along the direction perpendicular to the ribbon axis, the effect of natural edges is negligible and quantized thermal transport is observed. For GNRs with 2