Abstract

In this work we address the effects on the conductance of graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) of organic molecules adsorbed at the ribbon edge. We studied the case of armchair and zigzag GNRs with quasi-one-dimensional side-attached molecules, such as linear poly-aromatic hydrocarbons and poly(para-phenylene). These nanostructures are described using a single-band tight-binding Hamiltonian and their electronic conductance and density of states are calculated within the Green's function formalism based on real-space renormalization techniques. We found that the conductance exhibits an even-odd parity effect as a function of the length of the attached molecules. Furthermore, the corresponding energy spectrum of the molecules can be obtained as a series of Fano antiresonances in the conductance of the system. The latter result suggests that GNRs can be used as a spectrograph sensor device. © IOP Publishing Ltd.