Complex transport behaviors of rectangular graphene quantum dots subject to mechanical vibrations

¹ School of Physical Science and Technology, and Key Laboratory for Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of MOE, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, China
² School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University - Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
³ Department of Physics, Arizona State University - Tempe, AZ 85287, USA

^(b) huangl@lzu.edu.cn

Received: 29 February 2016
Accepted: 27 May 2016

Abstract

Graphene-based mechanical resonators have attracted much attention due to their superior elastic properties and extremely low mass density. We investigate the effects of mechanical vibrations on electronic transport through graphene quantum dots, under the physically reasonable assumption that the time scale associated with electronic transport is much shorter than that with mechanical vibration so that, at any given time, an electron “sees” a static but deformed graphene sheet. We find that, besides periodic oscillation in the quantum transmission at the same frequency as that of mechanical vibrations, structures at finer scales can emerge as an intermediate state, which may lead to spurious higher-frequency components in the current through the device.