Phase Transition in Armchair Graphene Nanoribbon Due to Peierls Distortion

In this work, the effect of Peierls distortion on the electronic properties of armchair graphene nanoribbons is theoretically studied in a tight-binding approximation. As a consequence of Peierls distortion, when the Kekule-type bond alternation is introduced, the band gap of armchair nanoribbons strongly depends on the difference in bond length between short and long bonds in the honeycomb lattice. We can control the band gap of a nanoribbon by its uniaxial strain and a semiconductor–metal phase transition can occur at certain elongations. © 2017, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society.