The impact of edges and dopants on the work function of graphene nanostructures. The way to high electronic emission from pure carbon medium

摘要

The impact of the edges and presence of dopants to the work function (WF) ofgraphene nanoribbons (GNR) and nanoflakes was studied by an ab initio approach.The strong dependence of the WF upon the GNR structure was found and apromising character for the field emission by the donor type impurities wasobserved. Basing on the predominant impact of the nanostructure edges to theemission properties, the small graphene flakes were investigated as a possiblesource for the electron emission. The obtained weak dependence of the low WFvalues of the graphene flakes on their size and shape allows to suggest thatthe pure carbon medium with high and uniform emission properties can befabricated by today technology.